Sure, but in the case of electricity, it's no different from the other poster's “just because we can fee” and “fee for processing your fee”. All these are added

Sure, but in the case of electricity, it's no different from the other poster's “just because we can fee” and “fee for processing your fee”. All these are added on top of the advertised "contract fee" and actual electricity price. They don't advertise prices such that you can take the advertised fixed fee, add your consumption times the advertised kWh price, and have your final amount due. No, they add a "tax on energy consumption", a "contribution to the public electricity service", and a "contribution to electricity delivery". And, on all of these, they levy the VAT. > they would just recalculate the base fees accordingly And I think this willingly done, to give the impression that taxes are lower than they really are. Which makes the whole thing seem dishonest.