Tuesday, June 22, 2010

UK VAT Raised to 20%

British Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne increased the value-added tax rate to 20 percent from 17.5 percent in the first permanent change to the levy on sales of goods and services in almost two decades.

This is the danger of focusing on the deficits without also emphasizing that taking from the private sector to reduce the deficit will suffocate the economy.

“The years of debt and spending make this unavoidable,” Osborne argued before Parliament iin his emergency budget. In reality, the VAT increase can be avoided by further cutting government spending and leaving the money in the private sector.

3 comments:

  1. The "inevitability" of politics seems never to lend itself to individual freedom.

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  2. Human Nature, that whirl of action aimed at individual self preservation wouldn't have it any other way. Is there no equal power pushing against this VAT pusher?

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  3. This will make our own soon-to-be-oh-so-real VAT look cheap. Let's see...5%? Who can complain about that? Look at the Brits. And we're going to have free health care just like them. Of course we can do it cheaper.

    Someone shoot me now.

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