BREXIT

[mtread]

[color=rgb(74, 74, 74)]Quote from: mtread on 28 November 2018, 11:46:44 PM[/color][/size]Just to make one thing clear, VAT is not an EU invention. It existed before the EU, and many Non-EU countries have also adopted VAT systems. 
[size=x-small]

Google tells me this.  Was VAT introduced by the EU?  VAT was originally a French idea, started in the 1950s. Britain introduced it as part of its condition of joining the European Economic Community. All countries joining the EEC had to replace their indirect taxes with the VAT.

I think you'll find that fits with what I said, except I didn't have to Google it 
Yes all EU states have to have a VAT, and it has to be within a set of limits. That's to ensure frictionless trade between member states. As I said before, that's why it's easy to buy Yamaha parts from Germany.
The VAT method is acknowledged as an efficient (believe it or not) way of taxing consumption. It's used all over the world, including countries like Mongolia. As far as I'm aware they are not in the EU....
If anybody says that by leaving the EU we will be cancelling VAT, they are talking bollocks.
VAT accounts for nearly a fifth of all UK government revenues. Far more than Purchase Tax ever did. If we didn't have VAT, the tax would be collected in some other way. Or they could just go on cutting the NHS, Police, Defense etc etc