Many EU countries have a “VAT” and like feel like this is kinda targeting poor people. Like, for the rich, this is insignificant, for poorer people, a (example) 20% tax would be a huge burden. Why do they do this?

🤔

      • boonhet@lemm.ee
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        26 days ago

        Someone wanna tell me one of those countries with reduced VAT for children’s clothing or bread?

        We get reduced VAT on hotel stays and medicine only. Bread, children’s clothing (or more importantly if you need to use it, milk formula, which is going to cost you more) are all full VAT. Estonian here.

  • Lauchs@lemmy.world
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    26 days ago

    They also tax the rich through progressive income taxes, capital gains taxes, corporate taxes etc.

    If you’re asking why not just tax the rich in place of a VAT, well, it’s sort of why not tax the rich to pay for absolutely everything we could want. The costs and difficulties in taxing the rich generally scale to the point where the marginal revenue raised by the tax becomes negative.

    • ERROR: Earth.exe has crashed@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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      26 days ago

      If you’re asking why not just tax the rich in place of a VAT, well, it’s sort of why not tax the rich to pay for absolutely everything we could want.

      So basically, you can only tax so much before the rich get mad and leave the EU? 🤔