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Nagler 31 if anyone’s looking …


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20 hours ago, John said:

There is an Ethos 21 in UK Astro Buy & Sell if anyone want's an alternative. It's not mine !

 

Wow, that works out to within $22 of new price here in the states before shipping and taxes.  Your TV new prices must be outrageously high right now.

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1 hour ago, Louis D said:

Wow, that works out to within $22 of new price here in the states before shipping and taxes.  Your TV new prices must be outrageously high right now.

The Ethos 21mm is currently listed new at £810 GBP at First Light Optics.

I understand from that other forum that ES stuff has taken a price hike in the US and is now closer to Tele Vue pricing ?

 

 

 

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Not exactly.

The US has no national sales tax, so prices here are quoted without any taxes:

TeleVue 21mm Ethos--$854, or £615.56 or €725.97

Explore Scientific 20mm 100°--$799.99, or £576.63 or €680.06

[I used the big bank exchange rate because it was easiest to compute.]

FLO lists the 21mm Ethos at £810.00, but remember that that price includes VAT.

As does the €990.00 price that APM charges for the same eyepiece (€831.93 without tax).

Plus, you have additional shipping and importation fees added to the cost, which the US does not.

Except now, where ES is paying a 25%+ tariff on the importation of eyepieces, while TeleVue, with no Chinese sources, is not.

So the same eyepiece, sent to Europe or the UK will not pay the 25%+ importation tariff that ES pays in the US.

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2 hours ago, Louis D said:

Is it normal for TV eyepieces to go for 89% of new prices in the UK?

£810/1.2 = £675 new vs £600 used.

Nobody takes the vat off the new purchase price when selling used stuff here. The new price of the ep is £810 and that's that, no avoiding the vat.  The used price is £600 and that is £210 saving on new. Plain and simple. 

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5 hours ago, Louis D said:

Is it normal for TV eyepieces to go for 89% of new prices in the UK?

£810/1.2 = £675 new vs £600 used.

A lot of astronomy kit seems to go for around 2/3 of new price (including VAT), there is no VAT/sales tax on the sale of 2nd hand equipment by individuals. This percentage is often higher for premium or rare items, the more or less 75% (600/810) in this case is high but probably not exceptional. 

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8 hours ago, CraigT82 said:

Nobody takes the vat off the new purchase price when selling used stuff here. The new price of the ep is £810 and that's that, no avoiding the vat.  The used price is £600 and that is £210 saving on new. Plain and simple. 

In the US, no one includes sales tax in their computations because it varies from place to place, and is not applied to many foreign purchases and even some internet purchases if the seller has no nexus of business within the purchaser's state.  It's also not included in the retailers price on websites.  It's computed at checkout and added along with shipping at that time.

As a result, the price Americans ask for used items would seem to be much less than VAT country sellers since we're not trying to recoup our sales tax originally paid.

For instance, a $100 item would cost on average $106 with sales tax (although it varies from $100 to $111 locally).  Using the 65% rule, most sellers ask in the $65 range, and no sales tax is generally collected on personal sales.

In the UK, a £100 item would cost £120 everywhere, apparently; and using the 65% rule, most sellers would ask in the £78 range instead of the £65 range because they do not remove the VAT they originally paid and seem to want to recoup at resell.

Thus, the UK seems to use the 78% rule instead of the 65% rule that the US uses.  Keep this in mind if you ever do cross Atlantic sales.  Alternatively, the US uses the 54% rule if a 20% VAT is assumed on new sales in the US to level the playing field.

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1 hour ago, Louis D said:

In the UK, a £100 item would cost £120 everywhere, apparently; and using the 65% rule, most sellers would ask in the £78 range instead of the £65 range because they do not remove the VAT they originally paid and seem to want to recoup at resell.

Yes, the only qualification to that is that no-one in the UK would consider it to be a £100 item because it would be advertised everywhere inclusive of tax at £120 (the only businesses that price without sales tax are those that sell primarily to other businesses that are likely to be VAT registered and able to reclaim the tax)

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2 hours ago, Louis D said:

Thus, the UK seems to use the 78% rule instead of the 65% rule that the US uses.  Keep this in mind if you ever do cross Atlantic sales.  Alternatively, the US uses the 54% rule if a 20% VAT is assumed on new sales in the US to level the playing field.

No that’s not right. I mean your maths is correct but the application of logic isn’t. Everything has VAT applied to it - every single piece of astronomy equipment and over 90% of all other products with some weird exceptions like postage stamps and children’s clothes. Therefore that amount is integrated into the purchase price. I can understand in the states - where you have a system of adding tax at point of sale - that you may see it differently.

But it’s a static rate that applies to everything, everywhere. So much so, that the price of items without VAT isn’t advertised anywhere separately. The price - with VAT - is the price. So when selling an item, we aren’t “trying to recoup tax” as you put it, we’re recouping a portion of the price paid. The amount we pay in VAT is irrelevant to us as a consumer, all we care about is the total amount we paid. 

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Orion Optics are about the only vendor in the UK that I know of that do not include V.A.T on their listed prices. 20% on the end of the shopping cart can come as a bit of  a shock !

(although their website does state prices are "excl. VAT" to be fair)

 

 

 

 

 

 

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23 minutes ago, John said:

Orion Optics are about the only vendor in the UK that I know of that do not include V.A.T on their listed prices. 20% on the end of the shopping cart can come as a bit of  a shock !

(although their website does state prices are "excl. VAT" to be fair)

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the problem is that because it’s so rare in B2C trading, you do assume it’s inclusive of VAT over here. 
 

@Mr niallhas it spot on, because it’s included into everything, we consider the cost as being the price, with everything built in at the time of sale. 
 

 

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2 hours ago, John said:

Orion Optics are about the only vendor in the UK that I know of that do not include V.A.T on their listed prices. 20% on the end of the shopping cart can come as a bit of  a shock !

(although their website does state prices are "excl. VAT" to be fair)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes that always strikes me as rather ingenuous. Certainly annoying. If not sharp.

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Ingenious on the part of your government to hide the tax such that no one is aware of it.  It also makes it easier to raise it when it's hidden.

These hidden taxes are referred to as excise taxes in the US and are applied to specific items like fuel, alcohol, and tobacco products.  Sales tax is often applied on top of these hidden taxes making them even more insidious.

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No everybody is fully aware of the VAT that is included in the price so not hidden at all. Just seeing the total that you have to pay is a better way. Perhaps the US system tricks people into spending more than they intended as something looks cheaper without the tax. 🤔

Edited by johninderby
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I may be mis-remembering but I think it was made a legal requirement in the UK that when selling goods to the public ( I forget the terminology, ie excluding business sales) that VAT must be included in the advertised/listed price ?? Did a quick google but not found a ref. yet :(
 

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26 minutes ago, Louis D said:

Ingenious on the part of your government to hide the tax such that no one is aware of it.  It also makes it easier to raise it when it's hidden.

These hidden taxes are referred to as excise taxes in the US and are applied to specific items like fuel, alcohol, and tobacco products.  Sales tax is often applied on top of these hidden taxes making them even more insidious.

Not hidden at all Louis, we all know it’s there, and all actually appreciate that the price tag shown on the ticket is what we pay at the till. I would find it most annoying knowing something extra was going to be added on to the price when I paid, that seems lacking in transparency to me. Oh, and believe me, we would all be aware of the government chose to put VAT up!

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22 minutes ago, Louis D said:

Ingenious on the part of your government to hide the tax such that no one is aware of it.  It also makes it easier to raise it when it's hidden.

These hidden taxes are referred to as excise taxes in the US and are applied to specific items like fuel, alcohol, and tobacco products.  Sales tax is often applied on top of these hidden taxes making them even more insidious.

We have this too. Fuel duty is £0.57 per litre on petrol, then we pay 20% VAT on the total. So with the retail petrol price around £1.25 per litre including tax, we are paying around £0.78 in tax of which £0.11 is VAT levied on the fuel duty.

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9 minutes ago, Malpi12 said:

I may be mis-remembering but I think it was made a legal requirement in the UK that when selling goods to the public ( I forget the terminology, ie excluding business sales) that VAT must be included in the advertised/listed price ?? Did a quick google but not found a ref. yet :(
 

Yes. For adverts: https://www.asa.org.uk/advice-online/compulsory-costs-and-charges-vat.html

At govt requirements in shops https://www.gov.uk/tax-on-shopping/where-you-see-vat

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24 minutes ago, Stu said:

Not hidden at all Louis, we all know it’s there, and all actually appreciate that the price tag shown on the ticket is what we pay at the till.

They why not remove it when calculating the true cost of the item before taxes for resale purposes since end consumers seem to be unable to recoup VAT taxes paid?

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13 minutes ago, Louis D said:

They why not remove it when calculating the true cost of the item before taxes for resale purposes since end consumers seem to be unable to recoup VAT taxes paid?

Are you winding us up Louis? 🤣

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1 hour ago, Louis D said:

They why not remove it when calculating the true cost of the item before taxes for resale purposes since end consumers seem to be unable to recoup VAT taxes paid?

I think we’re just arguing semantics now.

edit. I did write a big long post but… meh. It didn’t add anything really!

Edited by Mr niall
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A couple notes:

1) The UK now requires that an American merchant collect the VAT at time of sale and pay the British government the tax separately upon shipment.

So all US prices exclude VAT but it will be charged.  Any American seller selling to the UK now and not charging VAT on top of the price is probably selling below his cost.

I have given up selling to the UK because of this.

 

2) I'm in CA, and when I sell to the other 49 states, I need not charge sales tax.  So the price listed, which does not include tax, is what the consumer pays.

In CA, I not only charge tax, but there are 509 separate tax rates for residences in my county, so the tax charged is not only not standardized, it varies according to zip code!

I have to note that when I pay sales tax collected to the state.

 

3) Merchants in other states with Sales Tax (not all states have a sales tax) also charge their local state rate for purchases made in state but do not charge sales tax for purchases from out of state.

 

4) Because of the internet and many/most people buying from out of state to avoid the sales tax, local governments are missing billions of dollars in revenue  that they got before Covid-19

when a lot more sales were in local stores.  There is, because of that, a move to require all merchants to collect sales tax for purchasers in all the states that have a sales tax, and pay sales tax to each state.

That would be such a nightmare that a very large number of retailers would simply close up shop rather than have to pay 4 dozen separate taxes monthly or quarterly.

That is why it has not be instituted.  But if sales continue to shift to the internet and away from stores (a shift that started long before Covid), that may happen.

The possibility is to devise a central bureau to receive all the sales taxes for all 50 states and distribute it to the separate states for the merchants.  At a cost, of course.

One other thing that has kept this collection of taxes from happening isn't logistical, it's the long history of anti-tax sentiment in the US.

The obvious answer is a VAT that covers all 50 states, but this would cause a revolution in the US, so it won't be done.  Remember George III and the tea tax?

Also, there is a substantial argument this affects the poor more than the rich, which isn't viewed as fair, and a VAT percentage cannot be computed based on one's income.

I could really get into the weeds with this since a very good friend is a tax attorney and we have debated this for decades, but I won't.

 

To get back to the price of the 31mm Nagler, any UK denizen buying from the US should add 20% to the purchase price and not forget that shipping is now quite expensive compared to only 5 years ago.

So $666 = $799.20 and there would be at least $75 for freight and insurance (maybe more) = $874.20, which is £630.67

So UK prices are in line with US prices.

Edited by Don Pensack
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