On 24-Jan-12 11:09, Neil Williams wrote:
On Jan 24, 4:53 pm, John Levine wrote:

I expect the Europeans question the sanity of a country with thousands
of different sales tax rates that vary by what you buy, where you buy
it, and even who you are, and that require that the clerk compute the tax
at the time of the sale.

It seems to me to be pointless to tax anything requiring a subsidy, as
that just creates a money-go-round, as it were. Thus, the German VAT
on domestic rail services seems stupid to me - all that does is create
administration where you could instead simply reduce the subsidy.

The "money-go-round" makes it more obvious what's being subsidized--and
by how much. Exempting something from taxation is an indirect subsidy,
i.e. one that doesn't show up on the books anywhere and is difficult to
quantify.

So, there is _some_ justification for doing things that way; whether it
is sufficient to overcome the additional paperwork (if any, since it
reduces paperwork in other areas) is probably a matter of opinion.

S

--
Stephen Sprunk "God does not play dice." --Albert Einstein
CCIE #3723 "God is an inveterate gambler, and He throws the
K5SSS dice at every possible opportunity." --Stephen Hawking