Suppliers with free delivery?

[grrr_arrghh]

lol, yeah.

We could have virtual tax-man paintball...

 

[Johnson777717]

THanks a million Grrr. Very nice explanation!

The VAT sounds a LOT like our "sales" tax here. I think were somewhere around 9% sales tax on retail items, depending on which state you live in. I'm not sure how it works from distributor to distributor. I suppose we're a little lucky because tax is so low considering. Also, some items in the US aren't taxable, for instance, government institutions don't have to pay sales tax, as well as non-profit organizations. Additionally, restaurants / hotels etc don't have to pay tax on carry out items such as plastic forks, spoons, lunch trays etc.

Although, our tax system gets a little goofy because we have excise (additional) taxes on non-necessity items such as tobacco and alchohol, as well as gas (petrol) etc.

postage stamps here are a straight fee, no tax involved.

We do get taxed on wages, as well as buying goods, so we're the same there.

I suppose the US make their real tax money on property taxes since someone is always developing some area.

LOL, sorry folks, didn't mean to start a tax rave It's just interesting to know what is happening in other countries. I think if the US were to raise taxes to 17%, there would be another civil war, or revolution or something along the lines. Simply stated, the US citizens would be in an uproar. 25% taxes would be cause for some scary things.

One last question while were discussing taxes, do the people in the UK / Europe learn about the Boston Tea party and the revolutionary war and other pre-united states history?

 

[grrr_arrghh]

VAT has been about where it is now since I was born, so I don't know any different. Mind you, they've abolised duty free on trips into Europe now :twisted: :evil: :twisted: but I won't start on that.

lol, ironic thought. Think of all the wepons they population would buy for their civil war. Think of all the 'sales tax' they'd give to the government!!

 

[grrr_arrghh]

One last question while were discussing taxes, do the people in the UK / Europe learn about the Boston Tea party and the revolutionary war and other pre-united states history?

never hear of it!

but then my only interest in history lies in ancient history. As far as I know the school history exams don't cover it (or i'd prob have heard of it...) not sure about at uni though...

although, years ago, at school, we did quite alot of stuff on native indians. don't think thats quite what ur talking about, but its pre-usa

so what was this tea party anyway? (i'm guessing they didn't sit around drinking tea...?)

I agree, it interesting to learn about how other countries do things, especially as I can't afford to go there!!

 

[Johnson777717]

VERY good point about the firearm taxes.

The Boston tea party took place in Boston Massachusetts (A city and state in the US). Boston was receiving tea from England at the time, and England was charging an extraordinary amount of tax on the tea. So, the Boston people got mad and sabotaged all of the ships carrying tea. They basically dumped all of the tea into the ocean and in effect stating to England:
"Ok, you want to charge high taxes? well, we'll just destroy your tea so you wont be getting taxes OR revenues off of the tea! "

Basically, England had all of these taxes on goods going to the "united states" and special rules where farmers had to give up some of their crops for england, etc. Basically, the people over in the "united states" felt that they didn't want to be ruled by England any more.

The tea party was one of the milestone events leading up to the revolutionary war, where the United States fought for independance from England. The US people revolted against England, and England sent their troops over to the US to clean house. Well, cleaning the house didn't work out for England, so eventually the US became the US.

Here's a link, which is more accurate than I could ever be:
https://www.multied.com/revolt/causes.html

Please replace all "England" with Britian. oops.

 

[chaotic-mind]

It's my understanding that VAT is roughly analogous to sales tax here in the States, though 17.5% is quite a steep penalty just for buying something. In California we pay only 7.75%.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

One last question while were discussing taxes, do the people in the UK / Europe learn about the Boston Tea party and the revolutionary war and other pre-united states history?

I was certainly taught about the Boston Tea Party at school, I even have a song on an album about it - The Boston Tea Party by The Sensational Alex Harvey Band.

There's no censorship about it in British schools, generally we couldn't care less about it :lol: we were glad to get rid of those 'troublesome colonials'. But subjects taught in History seem to change over the years, in a few years time it will be back round again!. Certainly it's considered a very minor event in British history, although it's obviously a very important event in US history.

 

[grrr_arrghh]

I shall have to see if I can find that track Nigel :lol:

Well you learn something new everyday. What is interesting to me is this: We learnt a lot about the wall street crash (when I HAD to do history ), and we were always taught that one of the major contributing factors was the taxes the US put on exports, so very few countries were buying stuff from the US. Seems a very similar state of afairs.

I've learn't a lot in this thread. Quite a productive weekend.