VAT

The British Government, in its infinite wisdom, has decided to stimulate the economy by lowering the sales tax, know as Value Added Tax (VAT), from 17.5% to 15% for the next 13 months. Personally, I think the government could have put the 12.5 billion GBP that the tax discount will cost to better use. This change is expected to save the average resident aroung 200 GBP over the time period it is in effect. Interestingly, however, the law passed to make this change does not require retailers to lower the price of items to reflect the change. Thus, since British prices include VAT, some businesses, including Sports World, have opted to leave prices the same and simply make a larger profit from each item.

While this might seem unreasonable, it is far more practical that trying to change the price of every taxable item in a large store or training sales assistants to know which items are taxed and which are not so that they can make the adjustments at the till. For many stores, this would be a logistical nightmare and would cause more harm than good, defeating the original purpose of the tax reduction.

Despite this, however, some customers feel strongly that the prices should be lowered. One customer at Sport World today insisted that we call a supervisor, because, in her words, "I've been to six shops today, and at every one of them, they've taken some off at the till. And you're supposed to, too!" Another customer asked if prices were reduced and responded by calling us "Meanies!" when I told her they weren't. Other customers remarked that it was "odd" that we weren't reducing prices like Marks and Spencers and some other High Street shops.