A 2.5% saving VATs not very good at all.

It seems clear to me (from comments on tv and elsewhere) that greedy retailers will not be passing the reduction onto customers.

And asking ONE retail manager hardly means you can call it a "mixed reaction"!

Very encouraging to see a drop in VAT, but will it be worth anything? Most food is non-VAT, so irrelevant. Petrol, Alcohol and Tobacco are to have duty increased to off-set VAT fall. Only luxury items would seem to have any price chnage here, and can anyone afford them? Maybe Captain Darling could have earned some brownie points through VAT change by zero rating the 5% currently charged on gas and electric for a while. That would have been more popular for him and the Labour government I suspect. Roll on May 2010 !!

I am not a greedy retailer; in the face of food costs rising 10-15% over this time last year and heat/lighting which has gone up 33.3% since the end of 2004 (to give but 2 examples) and also the fact that many non-VAT registered businesses charge exactly the same money that we do for exactly the same service (yet 17.5% of their tariff goes into their pockets and not the Chancellor; I for one will not be reducing my tariffs by 2.5% as my customers' recieve excellent value for money and given the choice I would not rather work for nothing (which I have done in the past I might add).

Katherine

its not just greedy retailers, our bus fares went up twice in six months because of the price of fuel, fuel according to todays SEN is now at its lowest since last april, why haven't the bus fares come down again?

Another greedy retailer here - no I won;t be passing on the 2.5% because my staff need jobs! But if I make more profit I pay more tax so win win all round!

comet had board in their doorway today advertising reductions from monday on everything in line with the cut in vat, now thats scrupulous

I'm sorry but to label all retailers as greedy is just stupid. Are you labelling every VAT registered business as greedy if we do not pass on the saving? It is a case of doing what is needed to keep your business afloat and pay your bills. I doubt very much whether any small business which has ceased trading both in Scarborough and around the country were in business to make huge profits (as we are realists), it's called making a living/providing a service and giving your employees the means to earn a living.

Small businesses today are grateful to show a profit at the end of the financial year and yes that does mean more personal tax and national insurance to pay but at least we are still trading and when push comes to shove we have viable businesses when the time comes to sell after all turnover and more importantly profit is what sells a business because it is key to banks lending to prospective purchasers.

Katherine

i thought the idea behind the cut in vat was to give more spending power to the person in the street, ie a cut in vat equals an increase in disposable income, this greater disposable income can then be distributed by the spending public into businesses big and small thus giving some sort of a boost to the slowing economy.

whether it works or not remains to be seen

consider where there are two similar businesses, one passes on the cut and the other doesn't, then wouldn't the latter be pricing themselves out of the market because when times are hard consumers will try harder to get what they want at a reasonable price?

Word of warning to all retailers who do not pass on the 2.5% vat cut, I as will many others, will be spending my hard earned disposible income such as it is,in places which are honouring the cut in vat.