"Adam H. Kerman" wrote in message ...

Neil Williams wrote:
On Sun, 22 Jan 2012 19:14:58 -0700, Robert Neville wrote:

That's because VAT is standard across a country. In the US there are
thousands of taxing districts in every state, each with it's own adder
to the base rate.

Presumably only one applies to any given shop?

Different sales tax rates apply to different goods in my state. Also, in
my state, newspapers and magazines are not taxed. It's really obnoxious
to impose all these high sales tax collection costs on merchants.

Ah well with VAT they do dangle a bit of a carrot in the shape of relief on
your purchases, which does include fuel. That can add to quite a bit of
discount, the costs of fuel being what it is in Europe these days.

There are different rates of VAT for different goods, though the UK has very
few variations - 8% on domestic fuel and various things that ladies have fo
buy and 20% on nearly everything else.