As we all know at this stage, the VAT increase has been in effect since Monday, but have we really noticed any difference? How many retailers have you seen adding on the increased VAT rate to it’s customers? I thought it would be quite interesting to know.

I asked a friend of mine who works in a Sony store, what they have done about the VAT increase. Interestingly his reply was “We absorbed it, we simply had to. Times are hard”. I was delighted to hear this, as I believed most retailers would simply add it on. Having looked around in other stores, there are no obvious signs of an increase in prices, I know it’s a tiny increase and would be hard to find. But my telltale sign was old looking pricing labels that obviously hadn’t been changed.

On the flip side – ValueIreland have an article on how the Toll on the M4 has increased by 4% to €2.80. Listening to NewsTalk this morning, each time they announced the number for texting your comments to, they had to include a disclaimer, “prices on Vodafone may be more expensive as they have applied the increased tax rate“.

If I’m to be honest, this is what I expected from most retail outlets, stealth increases to coincide with the VAT increase, but so far, this doesn’t appear to be true in most places.

I hope that this will be a continuing trend – but if you have noticed increases in places, please post the names here!

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Tags: Tax, Value added tax, VAT, Vodafone