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Comment by rsynnott | Hacker News Reader

> 19% and 7% for food and a couple other exempted items

You're understating the complexity a bit here, I think. For instance, what's VAT on a loaf of bread, vs a bagel, vs a croissant? (I don't actually know for Germany, but in Ireland a loaf of bread is zero-rated, as is a bagel, but a croissant is reduced-rate, but for a period of around a year a few years back a bagel was also reduced-rate...)

The US gets its tax complexity from regionalism, and Europe gets it from baroque VAT rules. It's debatable which is worse :)

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Sure, but the big difference between Ireland vs the US is that in Ireland, the VAT is in the price you see on the object, whereas in the US things just cost extra when you go to pay for them.

I agree that VAT rules are a bit nuts, but most of the insanity is shielded from most consumers.

Oh, yeah, from a consumer perspective VAT is a far better experience, but that's largely disconnected from the nature of the tax, and more around consumer law. VAT is simple for consumers because the EU forces sellers to present inc-VAT prices. US sales tax is messy for consumers because the US doesn't. It's totally possible to imagine a VAT-type regime with US-style consumer rules, where you'd have to figure out if your bread was actually bread before putting it in the shopping basket.

> It's totally possible to imagine a VAT-type regime with US-style consumer rules, where you'd have to figure out if your bread was actually bread before putting it in the shopping basket.

That would be hilarious, especially if you're shopping with friends.

It would be ludicrous though to actually implement, rather like the US's sales-tax system.

I rather like having items and taxes separately. God knows how crazy our politicians would get with taxes if they were buried and not readily apparent!

Receipts in Europe will typically show VAT; it's just that the price of the item on the shelf or website or whatever must be inclusive of VAT (assuming that the target market is consumers; b2b sellers are allowed show ex-VAT figures provided they also show inc-VAT figures).

You're completely missing the point. The code style doesn't matter as long as it's consistent across the codebase.

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