/int/ - International

I think there is just no way to make VAT fair because rich people don't buy their stuff themselves, their companies do it for them, and companies don't pay VAT. Also compared to other taxes it's probably the most complicated in relation to the volumen. Would be easier to just tax companies more.

> On the other side one might argue that vat hurts specially the poorest sectors of society, and by taxing essential goods like literal food that people have no option but to buy, the government is increasing poverty. No, progressive tax scale only creates more problems. I worked in HoReCa as sysadmin for 3 years and seen some shit. In Russia there pretty wacky VAT scale. First of all there three most common Tax Systems: > General Tax System You pay 0%-20% VAT, depends of types of goods you sell. Zero for transit sales and some exceptions like goods for cosmonautics 10% for some food and basic clothing > Simplifed Tax System Zero VAT. But you pay 6% of income or 15% of income minus expense, depends of your income. Limited by 450 millions rubles of income. > Patent Tax System You pay fixed fee (depends of region) but only limited it 2.4 millions rubles of income. And here comes the tax evasion: many restaurants in Moscow tries to accept cash illegally. Oh, sorry, Herr Bernd, but we can't accept cards right now, our system broke, can you pay in cash? Remember I mentioned "15% of income minus expense"? My colleague provided to one restaurant "consulting services" to lower their tax base. What I'm trying to say? Progressive tax rates do not create equality and some kind of fairness, they create stimulus to avoid taxes.

>>9702 >companies don't pay VAT I don't think that's true.

VAT is an extremely retarded and extremely hard to administer tax. imagine how much easier would it be if businesses didnt have to bother with the receipts etc. and sending part of their revenue to the government which creates complicated accounting issues. imagine how easy it would be if only possessions were taxed, such as land, buildings, vehicles etc. imagine how much easier it would be to do business and how the economy would blossom if taxes were not involved in sales, salaries, profits etc.

>>9702 > what is Vorsteuer

>>9720 >>9727 The very definition of VAT is that it's a consumption tax that's only paid by the end consumer, but collected from the companies. Vorsteuer is part of the collection mechanism. When a company buys something for its own use, e.g. computers or machines, it doesn't pay VAT on it. Neither do e.g. parts of the German federal government like federal offices or federal research centers. It's called Vorsteuerabzug. For some stupid reasons other instances, like schools, universities and state offices have to pay VAT. The government is re-taxing a part of its own money. Genius.

>>9734 > When a company buys something for its own use, e.g. computers or machines, it doesn't pay VAT on it It pays Vorsteuer, unless it can offset it with VAT to stuff it sells. The general idea, as far as I understand it, is that business and private persons are two domains of taxation and passing between them incurs a tax.

>>9735 The moment the thing it buys becomes a permanent business asset (Betriebsvermögen) instead of being a part of something that is meant to be a product that is sold on later, the Vorsteuer is nulled by a virtual Vorsteuerabzug. The only case in which this doesn't work is if the thing was bought from a private individual that cannot handle VAT (e.g. the company buys a used car directly from Bernd). If the asset is sold on later, VAT may have to be collected on it.

Fines and VAT should be proportional to your wealth. Shouldn't be difficult considering the Finance Ministry already has the data.