this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2023
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And yet many countries remove VAT from produce without any issues at all. I wonder why it is such a catastrophe here.
Do they though? Are there any countries who do this, and haven't had court cases over weird edge cases?
Well a quick search turns up nothing, but I think a better source his this 2019 review from AU Law Review which found the benefits of zero-rating produce outweigh any potential problems. It even mentions that is is successfully done in many other countries.
That's a big step back from "no issues at all", isn't it?
Did they have court cases and if so did the court cases somehow harm the economy or the population in some way? I find it odd that you would oppose any law because somebody might file a court case. That seems batshit crazy to me. Virtually every law is eventually tested in the courts.
What a bizarre statement.
I stand by my statement. To the best of my knowledge this exists in many countries without problems.
Of course there have been issues in some countries, but notice I did not say all countries did I?
Further, I see you completely ignored the article and instead chose to pick on semantics.
Which countries, then? Where has this been implemented where it hasn't cost them an absolute fortune in legal fees and added admin costs?
Or are you just making shit up?
Canada.
Since you only provides a single example I only need to do the same. Or are you making shit up?
Look at that, cases over weird edge cases.
Another court case.
Oh look, another one.
Starting to think this will be an expensive pain in the ass.
None of those have anything to do with food exemptions. We have been specifically talking about zero-rating produce. No-one is arguing that we should start zero-rating other things, or that certain jurisdictions have complex tax code.
You, and others, are trying to argue that GST exempt produce will be frought with troubles, but the only example you have provided is that one court case in the UK.
I don't think there is anyone who has compiled a list of specifically those that have removed it from produce, however if you look at this table on Wikipedia: List of countries by tax rate, you'll see that many of them have variable or reduced rates in the "VAT or GST or Sales Tax" column. You'd have to look into each country to see what their reduced rate applies to.
So quite a few countries have managed to make it work it would seem