Subject:
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Re: Lego prices?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.general
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Date:
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Wed, 14 Jan 2004 23:27:57 GMT
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Viewed:
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814 times
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In lugnet.general, Anders Isaksson wrote:
> Pedro Silva wrote:
> >
> > To cut a long story short, VAT is not meant to fund healthcare. VAT
> > is used for "financing" the EU and is redistributed in the form of
> > (mainly) agricultural subsidies, but also the "convergency funds"
> > that have allowed for infrastructural work in poorer countries.
>
> This is not strictly true, as we have had VAT in Sweden since the fifties,
> and EU is not that old :-)
It was known as "EEC" from 1957 until 1992, then "EC" until 1995 - so
technically, you're correct: the "EU" isn't that old. :-)
Is it possible that this is a mere coincidence? Before we joined the EEC we had
a similar sales tax (with a different name), yet we had to switch that for VAT
in 1986. It's a EP directive, transposed to national legislation.
> The VAT is a tax on sales, and the money drawn in can be used for anything
> by the government.
Not quite so...
The bulk of VAT goes to Brussels. A portion is used to finance the EU's organs,
and another is distributed in the form of subsidies, grants and convergency
funds - all of which have strict allocation rules (mainly, for structural public
works). The small portion of VAT that a country may or not charge above EU's
requirements is added to the "cake", but has comparably low impact over
healthcare financing.
> OTOH, EU has regulated VAT for its member countries, it can't vary too much
> between countries, and you may not have too many different VAT levels (I
> think we have one for food, one for building materials, and one for
> everything else).
Yup, same here.
But our healthcare comes from an autonomous fund, levvied from incomes. The
state's budget pays for hospitals and wages, everything else comes from that
fund (at least nominally).
Pedro
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Lego prices?
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| (...) I'm not quite sure if this is really the case. In Denmark our VAT (its called MOMS here) have been 25% on all sales, all commodities since before we joined the EEC in 1972, and it still is. It is used as a part of the state finances together (...) (20 years ago, 15-Jan-04, to lugnet.general)
| | | Re: Lego prices?
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| (...) I have to disagree here. They can be used for anything. It might be true for Portugal that the bulk of VAT is used to finance the Portugeese contribution to EU, but that is the choice of Portugal, it is not the case in Denmark. What is common (...) (20 years ago, 15-Jan-04, to lugnet.general)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Lego prices?
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| (...) This is not strictly true, as we have had VAT in Sweden since the fifties, and EU is not that old :-) The VAT is a tax on sales, and the money drawn in can be used for anything by the government. OTOH, EU has regulated VAT for its member (...) (20 years ago, 14-Jan-04, to lugnet.general)
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