sue_flaherty
Registered User
- Messages
- 127
How the Commission is effectively forcing people to enter into a contract with Club Travel is beyond me. Club Travel has not taken over Slattery Travel -they have, according to the website of the Commission, just "taken over the booking" -which is a meaningless phrase with no validity in law. (I've checked with two seperate lawyers).
By the way, I'm just in the process of applying for my annual licence from the Commission -guess how well my comments will go down with them !! (I am the only Dublin travel agent called Nick).
Like any government, the Irish one is completely ignorant of this fact. New taxes are always introduced as if the taxable amount was completely unaffected by them. Of course a new charge will mean the base (travel agent sales in this case) will go down. Still, the government *may* make some money if the decrease is not too large. This is very difficult to predict though.1) If the purpose of VAT,as with any tax, is to increase revenue for the state then this will have the opposite effect.
The logic on this one is beyond me. It is kind of like the leave-the-country tax that is lower if you are fleeing via the western UK (€2) as opposed to anywhere else in Europe (€10). But hey, does this not actually give lazy travel agents (as you said yourself before, there are plenty of those) a kick, forcing them to finally stop just clicking on websites and booking Aer Lingus flights for people, instead concentrating on the still lucrative and much more difficult true overseas arrangements?2) Even more weird is this :- the VAT is only charged on fees/profit for travel services to destinations within the EU. vat AT 21.5%.
It may be organized differently but in the end, the result is the same: You do not pay VAT on the product you are selling (flight, hotel, car rental, ...). So it is as if you paid VAT on all that you charged your client and then got it back for the part that you just re-sold. I fail to see how this is any different from what shops do.3) Incidentally, Shops charge VAT as you rightly state. But they get back the VAT they paid when they obtained the product from the factory/ wholesaler. We won't.
Cannot argue with this one. New taxes always have such effects. But with all governments starting to feel the burdens of their immense bank bail-out packages and stimulus programs, expect many more "creative" taxes in the near future.However its applied this VAT ruling will mean a loss of revenue to the govnt and the closure of businesses that will ultimately cost everyone more.
Such is the Internets. It opens up many new opportunities. High street travel agents die out, new Internet ones open up. The wheel of time keeps turning...4) The weirdest thing of all is I can set up an internet site in Bananaland selling packages to irish people to travel anywhere -they can pay by plastic- and there'll be no VAT hassle.
the new VAT regime applicable from 1 January
A stressful ridiculous situation.
Because they could. They also had loads of workers and pensioners on the payroll - something similar to the CS today as they were after all a state owned company.But why in gods name did aer lingus charge so much at the time...they must have made a fortune. 01-10-2009 11:47 PM
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?