Well, it's 2010 and there is a higher VAT rate, and it sucks! All around the place prices are up, I was recently on the Apple Store and an iPod Classic is nearly £200! I'm sorry, but that's too much. There have of late been sales for stores like Tesco saying "VAT Frozen!" which is great, until they raise it up as well. I think this is really annoying for smaller items like iPods, e.g. the 8GB iPod Touch was £130 on Amazon, now it is over a tenner more than that. That makes a HUGE difference if you are considering buying a new music player from that price range. Computer prices are also considerably up, and what was this for? So that the Government can get a bit more money, why did they change it in the first place? But that's economics, and this is a gadget blog. If you do want some cheaper gadgets to beat that horrible VAT then go refurbished. The Apple Store refurbished section often features some smashers of deals, but you need to watch out for them as they go so quickly. You could also buy second hand, but beware on sites such as ebay.
What do you think of the VAT increase, have you not bought something because it is worth that bit more now? Comment below as we love hearing your comments.
1 comments:
The government lowered the VAT rate to 15% around a year ago to encourage people to spend money, thinking spending might get the UK out of the recession. The 15% VAT rate was only a temporary measure and all that has happened is the VAT has returned to its normal rate of 17.5%. The higher shop prices aren't down to the government - what it is is shops sneakily started pricing items as if they had 17.5% VAT whilst under the 15% VAT period and when the VAT did return to normal on 01/01/2010, the shops increased the prices by 2.5p per £1.
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