alexaherself
Established member
- Messages
- 560
- Likes
- 149
it is one of the most efficient taxes to collect
I'm not trying to be rude to you, at all, but do you mean this seriously, or ironically?
VAT has been notorious for decades for being one of the very least efficient and most expensive taxes there can possibly be, to collect, in proportion to what it actually raises for HMRC.
It's unique, among taxes, for being the one kind of tax that unites taxpayers, officials and politicians in their acceptance of how very inefficient it is.
It's turned us from a nation of taxpayers into a nation of tax-collectors. :smart:
and can be easily applied with discretion between necessities and luxery items.
Easily? You're joking, perhaps?
The difficulties and anomalies involved in trying to do exactly that have caused perhaps more stupid and unnecessary litigation, over my lifetime, than any other tax-related issue.
And why would that be a good thing, anyway? Why would an easy ability (if there were one, which there isn't) to distinguish between luxuries and necessities justify taxing spending?!
It can also be avoided based on ones disposable income.
Now you're having a laugh, surely?
The people least capable of avoiding VAT are precisely the poorest in society who aren't in business, aren't VAT registered, and so on. They pay VAT on most of what they buy, and unlike many of society's more affluent members, they have no possible way to reclaim any of it at all.
Excuse my asking, but have you actually thought this through at all??