MSE News: VAT returns to 17.5% but some stores to freeze prices

Former_MSE_Guy · 31 December 2009 at 4:16PM

This is the discussion thread for the following MSE News Story:

"The cost of many high street and online purchases is set to rise today as the VAT sales tax returns to 17.5% ..."

Read the full story:
VAT returns to 17.5% but some stores to freeze prices

moo_cow · 1 January 2010 at 4:25PM

was a bit annoyed with tesco today. got to the checkout to find that about half of my items came through the till at a higher price. when mentioned I was told, 'we have put notices around the store about the vat increase'. The notices we found were pathetic little things placed on pillars here and there. I was not amused. Had I been doing a 'right to the last penny' count as I sometimes have to, I would have been left rather red faced at the checkout.
Not funny tesco!

teddyco · 1 January 2010 at 8:54PM

I have heard that many stores didn't pass on the initial drop in the VAT to their customers so it's not difficult to understand how stores are able to 'offer' a price freeze.

If the government really wanted to give money back to the public, they should have just written each tax payer a rebate cheque for £250.00 per person. President Bush did this same thing for US taxpayers in 2001 after 9/11 to boost the economy after the attacks.

I'll be glad to see Labour go!

byebyedebt · 2 January 2010 at 9:22PM

Don't beleive the hype. They are not freezing the VAT rise, they have already priced it in. Something that is £99.99 before that VAT rise will still be £99.99.

We saw this years ago when VAT went up. Stores were advertising buy now before the VAT rise. A month later after the rise, the prices were the same.

One big con.

mikeandrach_2 · 2 January 2010 at 11:27PM

i work for one of the bigger uk nonfood retailers, and remember changing 90% of prices on the day vat went down, only to change all of them backover the folowing month. now my company is one of the many saying we are not passing on the increase, what i am amazed by is how few people have actually worke dout for themselves that prics never really dropped. after all, surely if every retailer passed on the reduction on every product all the prices would not be ending in 99p still, not one of the thousands of people i have served this year seems to have actually realised this, worryingly, nor do any of my colleagues..

[Deleted User] · 2 January 2010 at 11:29PM

This is a load of BS.

I work at Comet. We have 'NO VAT INCREASE' slapped everywhere, yet i'd say 50% of our prices went up MORE than the VAT increase price. See the iPods for example..

chodges84 · 3 January 2010 at 6:05PM

It is a load of BS. Last year we didn't pass on the decrease, instead we put the difference in the charity box for the first month. I think only about 2 people ever queried it anyway.

We won't be rising prices either. I'd be surprised if tjhe vat decrease made any difference to peoples spending habits. It certainly didn't affect me. It was the biggest waste of time tax cut ever. It cost a lot of man hours and saved very little money (except for the big stores who had a small VAT bill every quarter and thus greater profits)

NekoZombie · 4 January 2010 at 2:18PM

I for one noticed that the price decreases never really happened. It was noticable which companies did pass on a decreases as the prices were alway weird, lik £24.42 rather than the usual £24.99. It's annoying that companies are now claiming a VAT freeze when they never passed the discount on in the first place!

Sugarhunny1 · 4 January 2010 at 2:28PM

OH went into Costa and they have raised their prices by 5p. Now its only 5p but I don't think they reduced ANY of their prices when it decreased!

Sugar xxx

MSE News: VAT returns to 17.5% but some stores to freeze prices

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