Oh dear, the Lib Dem MP Bob Russel lseems to be in a bit of a tizzy. He's tabled a motion condemning "Tesco, HMV, WH Smith, Asda and others in multi-million pound tax-dodging operations by selling goods online to UK customers from overseas locations which are not subject to United Kingdom or European Union Value Added Tax legislation". Apparently he wants the Government to name and shame the companies doing it because they're "public image needs to be exposed by such hypocrisy". There are just a few problems here.Firstly, this is not a tax dodge, if consumers want to buy something online cheaply from abroad they are going to do it anyway, so the company is not really dodging. Secondly, the companies all pay masses of tax anyway with their UK presence. Thirdly, Asda is owned by WalMart who trade in the US and that is where that stuff will come from.
Fourthly, anything you buy online these days from outside the EU that's over a hundred quid is spotted by HMRC and you receive a VAT bill in the post anyway. Fifthly and finally, I doubt very much that people will suddenly think "oh my, they're selling me stuff cheaply by cutting VAT cost! I must boycott them now and not buy that plasma screen which is 50% cheaper than in the shops!"
As it stand Bob Russell's signature is on its own anyway. I imagine that when his Parliamentary colleagues saw the motion they thought "oooo I must visit the HMV and Tesco website tonight and see what bargains I can get!"
3 comments:
In short he wants the costs to be passed on and the consumer to be ripped off again.
no one is ever going to vote in these fools if they keep on pushing pro tax policies.
Instead he should be pushing for a lowering of tax to boost consumer spending and also boost the economy.
He's an Idiot. To say more is a waste of limited Hearbeats.
Further proof, if it were needed, that we should never trust, take notice of or anything else for that matter, a man who wears stupid glasses
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