[Cyberyeti]

 cherdano, on 2019-October-17, 03:58, said:

So you think the influence of the EU was a good thing, then? Or do you claim to have superior knowledge on economics compared to the vast majority of economists who consider VAT one of the most efficient (technical term) forms of taxation?

Personally I have a higher opinion of the UK government as a whole than you on this- I think it would have gotten around to introducing VAT at some point, due to its undeniable clear benefits. Don't get me wrong, there is plenty I hate about how the UK is governed, but I still find that in many it ends up being fairly smart and practical.

Err - every expert I've ever heard has said VAT is one of the most regressive taxes around. https://ichef.bbci.c...groups1_464.gif example for the VAT rise to 20%.

Having looked at some more articles, the opinion seems to be mixed, actually I think the old system with various rates depending on what you're buying may have been more progressive.

[cherdano]

Yes VAT is somewhat regressive but you can compensate that by making income tax more progressive (relatively) or via other transfer payments.

In any case, basically (excluding oil states or off-shore tax havens) every country has some form of VAT, and to my knowledge pretty much every economist would recommend including VAT if they were asked to name an optimal mix of taxation. I have never seen VAT criticised by a broad share of the population - except in the UK. Maybe Brits have some idiosyncratic views on taxation, are therefore opposed to VAT, and therefore opposed to the EU. Or they are opposed to the EU, associate VAT with the EU, and therefore are also opposed to VAT...

[Cyberyeti]

 cherdano, on 2019-October-17, 05:20, said:

Yes VAT is somewhat regressive but you can compensate that by making income tax more progressive (relatively) or via other transfer payments.

In any case, basically (excluding oil states or off-shore tax havens) every country has some form of VAT, and to my knowledge pretty much every economist would recommend including VAT if they were asked to name an optimal mix of taxation. I have never seen VAT criticised by a broad share of the population - except in the UK. Maybe Brits have some idiosyncratic views on taxation, are therefore opposed to VAT, and therefore opposed to the EU. Or they are opposed to the EU, associate VAT with the EU, and therefore are also opposed to VAT...

I don't know why GB doesn't like VAT, maybe they preferred what was there before which as I understand it would have taxed your yacht at 55% and resented the lack of flexibility to vary tariffs.

[cherdano]

 Cyberyeti, on 2019-October-17, 05:31, said:

I don't know why GB doesn't like VAT, maybe they preferred what was there before which as I understand it would have taxed your yacht at 55% and resented the lack of flexibility to vary tariffs.

The must all be upset at Margaret Thatcher and her chancellor Geoffrey Howe who, in 1979, abolished a higher VAT rate for luxury goods.

[Winstonm]

 cherdano, on 2019-October-17, 06:27, said:

The must all be upset at Margaret Thatcher and her chancellor Geoffrey Howe who, in 1979, abolished a higher VAT rate for luxury goods.

A few of us were displeased with the taxes of King George.

[hrothgar]

Few thoughts with respect to the VAT, regressive taxes, and the like

Traditionally, when economists thought about the resource base of an economy they focused on a combination of

1. Natural resources such as timber, iron/coal deposits, fisheries and the like
2. Physical and human capital

I think that it is time to reconomize that the aggregate spending of the population is another such resource to be managed. In particular, as companies become more an more ingenious regards the ways in which they off shore their profits as to avoid corporate taxes, it becomes increasingly necessary to use mechanisms like the VAT which target revenues and can not be evaded nearly as easily.

And, while I agree with concerns that any kind of sales tax is inherently regressive I think that this can be balanced out on the spending side.

I suspect that we'll end up seeing taxation models transitioning from income type taxes to some combination of a wealth tax and a VAT.

[Cyberyeti]

 cherdano, on 2019-October-17, 06:27, said:

The must all be upset at Margaret Thatcher and her chancellor Geoffrey Howe who, in 1979, abolished a higher VAT rate for luxury goods.

That's the most selective quote ever. That higher rate was 25% nothing like what it was before, and had only been in place for 5 years after Denis Healey raised it (largely for petrol as a temporary measure during the oil crisis).

[Gerben42]

Although I find it annoying to have to click away the cookie warning so many times, and even some pages become not useable on Safari (what's up with that? forgot to design your website so that it actually works on mobile?), I agree with this law.

There is no reason why so many sites need cookies. I run the website for our Bridge district and we display information, just like most sites. We're not selling anything. Why on Earth should we want to make a file on the user's PC? The correct response on the cookie law is not to add warnings to all the sites, but to FINALLY get rid of the excessive cookies. And excessive "sending data to our best friend Google".

Also there is no problem of introducing a luxury tax. After all, Germany still has tax on liquors which was introduced to fund World War I. VAT won't vanish with Brexit. After all, governments follow the 1st Rule of Acquisition (Once you have their money, you never give it back.) Also #23 is popular in governments I guess (Nothing is more important than your health… except for your money.)

Finally, I'd like to say that I feel sorry for all the UKians, not only those who voted Remain but also those who voted Leave.
The upside: I was in London last week and I found it surprisingly affordable.

[smerriman]

 Gerben42, on 2019-October-21, 13:49, said:

There is no reason why so many sites need cookies. I run the website for our Bridge district and we display information, just like most sites. We're not selling anything. Why on Earth should we want to make a file on the user's PC?

I just visited the site linked at the bottom of your profile. It immediately stored three cookies on my computer, due to your use of Google Analytics.

Can you please get rid of all tracking on your website? Why on earth would you put a file on my PC?!

[cherdano]

 Cyberyeti, on 2019-October-17, 10:29, said:

That's the most selective quote ever. That higher rate was 25% nothing like what it was before, and had only been in place for 5 years after Denis Healey raised it (largely for petrol as a temporary measure during the oil crisis).

Sigh. Maybe you could just occasionally reply under the assumption that the other poster might potentially have a reasonable point to make.
Here the point is simple. Many arguments against staying in the EU are of the form "If only we wouldn't have the EU, the UK could implement [my personally preferred policy] on [topic XYZ]." This is usually wrong - yes there are 300 million other Europeans who may have another personally preferred policy, which their arguments might or might not fight for within the EU, but there are also 50 million other Brits who might have different views, and whose representatives might for their views in parliament.

The fact that the UK did have a luxury VAT rate within the EU shows that this was possible. The fact that it did abandon it voluntarily strongly suggests that if the UK had total freedom on its VAT regiment, it probably wouldn't introduce Cyberyeti's preferred 55% tax rate for yachts.

[Gerben42]

 smerriman, on 2019-October-21, 14:14, said:

I just visited the site linked at the bottom of your profile. It immediately stored three cookies on my computer, due to your use of Google Analytics.

Can you please get rid of all tracking on your website? Why on earth would you put a file on my PC?!

I'm sorry that's no longer my website... It's just a copy of a copy of a backup I'm afraid. I've never signed up to "Google Analytics"... I guess at the time I was happy to move my stuff somewhere after Geocities went out of existence. I haven't updated that stuff since about 10 years. Heck, I wouldn't know how to now.

Still, I don't care about cookies in one way or another. Feel safe to visit what used to be my site without me analyzing your browsing statistics

Update: File information says 2011, so it was 8 years, not 10...

[smerriman]

 Gerben42, on 2019-October-21, 14:51, said:

I haven't updated that stuff since about 10 years. Heck, I wouldn't know how to now.

Was referring to http://www.kultcamp-rieneck.de which appears regularly maintained. But perhaps that's not the website you said you run for your bridge district.

[Cyberyeti]

 cherdano, on 2019-October-21, 14:47, said:

Sigh. Maybe you could just occasionally reply under the assumption that the other poster might potentially have a reasonable point to make.
Here the point is simple. Many arguments against staying in the EU are of the form "If only we wouldn't have the EU, the UK could implement [my personally preferred policy] on [topic XYZ]." This is usually wrong - yes there are 300 million other Europeans who may have another personally preferred policy, which their arguments might or might not fight for within the EU, but there are also 50 million other Brits who might have different views, and whose representatives might for their views in parliament.

The fact that the UK did have a luxury VAT rate within the EU shows that this was possible. The fact that it did abandon it voluntarily strongly suggests that if the UK had total freedom on its VAT regiment, it probably wouldn't introduce Cyberyeti's preferred 55% tax rate for yachts.

Was true then, many treaties down the line that may not be the same now. Also there was the well publicised case that we were prevented from zero rating feminine hygiene products. I think this may now have changed, but it was a cause celebre here for years.

[Zelandakh]

 Cyberyeti, on 2019-October-22, 04:35, said:

I think this may now have changed, but it was a cause celebre here for years.

As I understand it, a new rule was brought in a year ago to allow for the rate to be reduced to zero but it cannot actually be implemented until January 2022, so the UK will see no benefit from the change unless it somehow is an EU member state at that time.

It should additionally be pointed out perhaps that Scotland showed that it is perfectly possible for a government to get around the current law if it has the desire to do so, with free sanitary products being made available at schools and food banks. My understanding is that this enterprise, originally just a 6 month trial, has been a huge success.

[Gerben42]

Still I'm worried that you would give up EU membership for something as irrelevant as cookies. I am thoroughly shocked that EU membership is given up so lightly.

[Cyberyeti]

 Gerben42, on 2019-October-24, 13:52, said:

Still I'm worried that you would give up EU membership for something as irrelevant as cookies. I am thoroughly shocked that EU membership is given up so lightly.

I think it's not so much giving up EU membership because we don't like where it is, we don't want to go where it's going.

[fromageGB]

I would be delighted to lose VAT. Sales tax and purchase tax are simple to understand, simple to administrate, and are far less prone to cheating. While it seems that VAT is technically efficient in that it theoretically encourages more efficient use of resources (or whatever your technical definition is), my definition of efficiency would include the degree of time and effort involved. Nevertheless, once someone invents a new tax, let alone one raking in so much money, it rarely seems to be removed.

I am really irked by cookie law, but there are many such EU rules that have helped. You can instantly categorise or choose foodstuffs as a consumer. In the USA recently I was bowled over by the number of overweight and obese people (by the number, not by overweight people) and the possibly related difficulty of finding processed food or menu choice that was less than 50% sugar (OK, maybe an exaggeration). Here in the EU you can look at a packet of breakfast cereal and instantly reject it because of the percentage sugar content. There in the USA you have to do a "complex" (for a point of purchase decision) calculation that a portion size is 43g and a portion gives you 23g of sugar (on different areas or even sides of the packet) so you can work out that it might be decidedly sugar-overloaded. In a supermarket I was doing this calculation comparison [[ long story, but I hate having to fish out all the raisins from raisin bran, which doubles the sugar load, and you never have the option of bran flakes without raisins. Try healthy shredded wheat in a hotel (healthy in the UK) and you find they are heavily sugar coated. Only once in many restaurants was I able to have a salad dressing that was not heavy in sugar, and I could rarely have a dessert ]] when a woman next to me, buying one of the better choices, asked me what I was doing. She was amazed when we worked out the calculation on her choice. All praise to the EU where it is due.

Unfortunately, along with the good comes the bad. And coming along is yet more EU integration, expense, armed services, bureaucracy, "let's go carbon-zero so we can feel good while the world dies", etc.

[Vampyr]

 fromageGB, on 2019-November-03, 18:31, said:

you never have the option of bran flakes without raisins.

This would not be true in a larger supermarket.

Quote

Try healthy shredded wheat in a hotel (healthy in the UK) and you find they are heavily sugar coated.

A counter example is Cheerios, which have five times the sugar here compared to the US.

[fromageGB]

Yes, self catering with a large supermarket available would give no problem. I was talking about the breakfasts available in the many hotels I stayed in (on a road trip), and contemplating taking my own cereal in. On the evening meal front, when I was dining in a decent restaurant the food was good, but when the choice was cheap chains or nothing, I would summarise it as bad. Green vegetables (other than salad) in very short supply.

[Cyberyeti]

We came up against EU data protection law while trying to save a dying computer game. The company that owned it were not prepared to commit any more programming effort, and they were not allowed to give us the limited data we needed (they could for US subscribers but not EU ones) to allow us to ask if they wanted the remainder of the data to be given to the new owners. The original company had to do the asking.