Quote:
Originally Posted by Nosferatu@Cult Labs  That's definitely a positive, but I suppose we on the mainland also benefit from the likes of Amazon, Play.com, HMV.com etc shipping from the Channel Islands as it keeps their overheads down so they can vastly undercut high Street stores and pass the benefits onto the customer. |
Yes there is that side of it too. There's many 'for' & 'against' arguments though, but one thing to think about is this...
Most of these big companies - and I'll use HMV as an example - found loopholes in the laws, came to and set up business in both Guernsey & Jersey (perhaps they should have been stopped - but I really don't think they could have been in any way), and then exploited the loopholes in the laws in every possible way for their own gain at the end of the day.
Lets say, and this is quite common, both Amazon & HMV have a DVD or BD priced at, for example, 12.00.
The Amazon price would include VAT but HMV price is VAT free because they are shipping from Guernsey. Now, to anybody on the UK Mainland it's makes no difference where they purchase because they are the same price, but remember, as HMV have exported that DVD/BD to Guernsey, only to ship back to the UK Mainland, they have already claimed back the VAT from the UK Government as they 'exported' that DVD/BD. So that's 2.00 in their pocket!
Multiply that 'X' amount of times and imagine how much money they make as most of the time that VAT refund that they have had is then not passed on to customers at all.
