#vat increase

ALERT: You may start paying tax on SMS, data — in place of the VAT increase

The Senate has introduced a bill that seeks to impose a tax on all communication services including electronic messaging and data usage.

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NEW MINIMUM WAGE: Labour reject Value Added Tax (VAT) increment

The United Labour Congress (ULC) has announced that they will not accept the Value Added Tax (VAT) increment proposed by the Federal Government following the Senate’s approval of the new N30,000 minimum wage.

Recall that the Senate approved the amount of N30,000 as the lowest wage payable to every Nigerian worker in a meeting yesterday.

Following the minimum wage approval, the Federal Government…

NEW MINIMUM WAGE: FG to increase Value Added Tax (VAT) Following the approval of the new N30,000 minimum wage yesterday by the Senate, the Federal Government has hinted that it might increase the Value Added Tax (VAT) by 50 percent to enable it to bear the expense of the new pay package.

Following the approval of the new N30,000 minimum wage yesterday by the Senate, the Federal Government has hinted that it might increase the Value Added Tax (VAT) by 50 percent to enable it to bear the expense of the new pay package.

The plan to increase the VAT was disclosed by the Minister for Budget and National Planning, Senator Udo Udoma, with the Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue…

On 1st January 2012, the top rate of VAT in Ireland rose from 21% to 23%. 

Everyone who knows me, knows I love to shop! I reckon I contributed considerably to the tax take of the Irish economy in 2011 so the announcement by the Irish government of a VAT increase did not impress me as it means less opportunity to buy pretty things!

That said, I'm all about buying Irish so instead of running off to the UK to spend my hard earned cash, I've decided to compile a list of great stores in Ireland who have announced that they will NOT be passing on the VAT increase to their customers (me!). I know it will definitely be shaping where I shop in the future anyway..

The 23 per cent VAT rate applies to a wide range of goods and services. Among the items that will be subject to the 2 per cent increase are: motor vehicles, petrol, electrical supplies, furniture, adult footwear and clothing, alcoholic and soft drinks, and tobacco. In terms of services, accountancy services, legal services, tax advisory services are all subject to the higher rate of tax.

The increase will apply to the top rate of VAT while goods and services on 13.5 per cent, 9 per cent or zero rate will be untouched. Here's a full list of all products included: http://www.revenue.ie/en/tax/vat/leaflets/increase-in-standard-rate.html. 

This means that claims by a number of supermarkets that they will not be passing on the VAT increase don't really carry a whole lot of weight as ironically most of their produce was never going to increase in the first place! You can read more about that here: http://goo.gl/oFyWs. In the interest of fairness, I included them below as they do stock some items where the higher rate of VAT applies, however I didn't include stores that are only not applying the increase for the month of January. If anything, it's all a bit of a learning for me!

Here's my list of stores NOT passing on the VAT increase to Irish customers: 

Aldi

Applegreens Petrol

Beauty Couture online store - http://www.beautycouture.ie/boutique

Buy New Specs.ie - http://www.buynewspecs.ie/

Dealz

Insomnia Cafe (*though only on soft drinks, fruit juices, bottled waters)

Knightsbridge Jewellery - http://www.knightsbridgeboutique.com

Komplett Ireland

Lidl

Madden Furniture

Marks & Spencer

McGreals Pharmacy, Blessington

MyChildcare.ie - http://www.mychildcare.ie/

Neola, Malahide

Oasis 

Specsavers

Sweeney Todd's, Bundoran

Tesco

Wapo Ireland - http://www.wapo.ie/