Tax, tax and more tax...

[GrumpyOldFart]

The digital service tax came into force in April 2020. The government introduced a new 2% tax on the revenues of search engines, social media platforms and online marketplaces.

Anyone who knows anything about trade knew that the companies liable for this stupid tax would simply pass it on to the consumer.

Amazon have been quite open about it saying, “we will be increasing Referral fees, Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) fees, monthly FBA storage fees and Multichannel Fulfilment (MCF) fees by 2% in the UK to reflect this additional cost”. In other words, the new tax will not cost Amazon anything at all.

Why governments think that taxing companies is a good thing I have no idea.

[klondike]

T'was always so. Tax forms part of the price of everything you buy and always has. That is apart from any VAT or purchase tax applied. It is my contention that every penny you spend will filter its way back to government coffers and that penny is already only a portion of what you earned as HMG has already taken a slice or will do so once your tax returns are filed.

The idea is to even up between online and bricks and mortar retailers. Those online retailers pay far less business rates. Naturally the simpler option of scrapping business rates was never considered.

[Ashy]

Tax is all that politicians think about from morning till night. Tax, tax, tax. What can we tax next.

[Michael Rolls]

Nails?
Mike

[biglouis]

Amazon, Ebay etc will increase their fees to sellers who in turn will increase their prices to take account of the increase. The consumer at the bottom always pays.

No surprises there.

When the US states began charging sales tax for online sales and making the marketplaces responsible for collecting and remitting it, canny customers began contacting me privately with a list of things from my shop asking "can I buy these items from you direct?"  Naturally I am not going to refuse.


Customer pays no sales tax
I pay no selling fees.