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Amazon and eBay Sellers' VAT Fraud Rife Despite Crackdown (theguardian.com)
Huge numbers of VAT fraudsters are illegally selling goods tax-free to British shoppers on Amazon and eBay, despite new government efforts to crack down on this ballooning 1bn pound VAT evasion crisis, reports the Guardian. From the article: A Guardian investigation found a wide variety of popular goods being illegally sold without VAT on Britain's leading shopping sites. They range from cheap Christmas tree lights, electric toothbrushes and thermal socks to expensive laptops, iPads, music keyboards, violins and pingpong tables. In some cases, VAT fraudsters offer unbeatable prices. Mostly, however, their prices remain in line with law-abiding competitors and the proceeds of evasion disappear overseas, often to China. Guardian investigations found many tax-evading sellers were trading without displaying VAT numbers on Amazon or eBay. Others were showing made up numbers, or numbers cloned, without authorisation, from unsuspecting legitimate businesses.
Article summary should define what this is..??
As ought to be with sales tax, the nexus of a sale for a VAT transation should be the seller's location, not the buyer's. Every seller has only one location or a small set of locations; in every event, the location is well known according to local laws. The task when trying to make the buyer's location the nexus of the sale for an internet transaction is extremely hard not just for ensuring that the taxing authority is the correct one but also for the bookkeeping of sending remittances the right way. It is a ludicrously bad scheme. There are thousands of taxing authorities in the U.S. alone--and the problem is even many times worse when you consider sales all through the world.
Wait, you mean to tell me those who don't like paying obscene taxes on goods the rest of the world enjoys VAT-free, try and find ways around it?
I'm shocked. Shocked, I tell you.
In related news, I wonder how many of those high-level regulators who are super-pissed about this problem also enjoy tax loopholes on a personal level.
Speaking of loopholes, any chance regulators from the Tax Haven of the Universe (Ireland) are super-pissed? They shouldn't be, since they harbor tax evasion on a scale most can't even dream of.
Call me naive (and my inability to communicate clearly...), but why don't all countries just "forbid sales tax", but charge merchants on a fixed percentage on the goods sold? So, consumers see merchandise say $X (which already has tax accounted for), instead of $Y + tax.
Because all merchants compete to show the lowest amount possible to people they're trying to sell, you'd put a rule that won't allow them to say $X+tax, but only $Y.
They do this in many countries in Asia. Why can't it be adopted by more countries?
The horror, the abject horror!
We, the British public, already get ripped off on almost everything. We pay 20% VAT on almost all products, we lose ~15% of our wages instantly in more taxes, we pay more per litre of petrol than almost every other developed nation on the planet and our government throws our money away (like giving hundreds of millions per year in so-called aid to developed nations such as russia). And now our government has carte blanche to spy on us in ways the stasi would have had wet dreams about.
Can you really blame people for not wanting to give our dangerously corrupt regime even more money?
Like by making these taxes actually benefit people somehow, and/or educating them on why it is a good thing to pay them, and then they will seek out goods that properly charge VAT. It's called value-added tax, show us some of the value.
Under that system you still need to deal with stuff like that selling over seas.
Successive UK govts. have severely underfunded the UK's Inland Revenue Service for decades. They don't have the resources to investigate most tax fraud which is why so many individuals and corporations are getting away with it. Remember that taxes are what pay for legal frameworks and judicial systems so that corporations can do trade as well as pay for education and training for their workers, building and regulating transport infrastructure, insuring and bailing out banks, etc. They get a pretty fantastic deal for what they pay but they still want to avoid paying that?
The government has literally made us all dependant on it without the consent of the individuals. The majority should never be able to force anything onto the rest of us non-consenting parties programs and taxes for which are little more than theft and dependants. They say slavery was abolished, but in reality we've all become slaves with the government telling us what we can and can not do despite there being no harm to others. The government utilizes violence and coercion against us who refuse to cooperate with its wealth redistribution programs (it's called socialism and taxes).
I'm not giving up- I've moved to New Hampshire to take part in the Free State Project. Alone and spread out we're not going to be able to overcome even the smallest of governments anywhere. However together gathered in one place those who don't believe in the use of violence to achieve social or political aims can overcome the the tyranny of government. Some think as a librarian I want school voucher programs and similar, but that's simply not the case. I want an end to government introduction programs (ie public 'schools') and a return to charity (individuals voluntarily giving to those less fortunate) rather than be forced to partake in inefficient and costly wealth redistribution schemes. I believe in a right to travel with whatever the means of the day are and that no government should have the authority to hinder employment (licensing) or movement (ie against drivers licenses, mandatory vehicular registration, etc).
Life has costs, it has risks, and you shouldn't surrender everyone’s freedoms for a little bit of superficial safety. What we have is security theater and I propose we end that. I'd like to go even farther and end the state police, end the federal government, and put in place the most minimal of systems to deal with roads and similar essentials and those things which actually can have a real impact on others (environmental) like pollution. We don't need licensing for restaurants/businesses when better systems can be put in place. If you get sick, report it to review system, and I won't eat there.
How about they update the byzantine, ridiculous tax code to something easy to comply with? Make it *easy* to pay instead of painful with crufty layers of bureaucracy and incompetent idiots in the way?
How about they also make it more fair, kick out the monarchy, trim unpopular departments like the Panopticon, and reduce the damned tax too.
Yes, VAT is a fraud and a scam.
They love to talk about their free social programs, but they hate paying for it.