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He's internally inconsistent. He complains amazon etc will simply pass on the cost, but he also complains that they don't have to pass on the cost of things lik
by iso1210 6y ago
He's internally inconsistent. He complains amazon etc will simply pass on the cost, but he also complains that they don't have to pass on the cost of things like VAT (which is odd, as my last AWS bill and the kindle book I bought both had vat)
- bhupy 6y agoThat's because a VAT is charged directly, like a sales tax. It's its own line item. It's technically the government charging a tariff on the purchase, rather than the merchant passing on a cost via price increase, though in-effect indistinguishable to your wallet.
- iso1210 6y agoHe seems to be arguing that his online competitors don't have to charge VAT, then he says Amazon specifically charge VAT I assume he has <£500m revenue, so won't be charging the "digitial services tax", but he's complaining that large companies like Amazon do charge it (even though they don't - they pay the tax, just like they pay tax on people they employ, tax on fuel their delivery vehicles use, property based taxes on warehouses and offices, and indeed other overheads like rent on offices - unlike VAT they don't collect it on behalf of the government) Amazon seem to be making a political statement on their invoices. They don't have a line item of "London office tax" or other cost centres, only on this. They must be annoyed - they can't charge people more (because they would charge people more without that 2% extra -- they don't price their services based on a fixed profit margin, but on the maximum price they think they can charge before losing customers), so it must be hitting their bottom line (however slightly).