Mario Galaxy info - minor spoiler - items and story

[reverie]

KruzeS,
Regarding "reducing" VAT or not - when people talk about reducing their tax they think of actually paying less, something like this:

You have a job and made 35.000 € in one year.
You spent 2000 € for driving to work and 1000 € for college classes.
The tax office agrees to let you pay income tax for only 32000 € of income, because the law allows to deduct expenses like commuting and education.
Thus you saved income tax.

This is not what happens with VAT. You always pay the full amount, one way or the other.

I agree that the quote on this snapshot from the Nintendo booth in Leipzig may or may not be with VAT, and companies might perceivably tailor their retail quotes to small shops by including VAT, but I still I think it's uncommon to quote retail prices with VAT in Germany (I will stop talking about the EU here for lack of experience in other countries). Here are a few business-oriented webshops that quote without VAT:

http://www.schaefer-shop.de/
(office supplies)

http://www.cyberport-b2b.de/
(IT+gadgets)

And as I mentioned, my company works in clothing and for our materials we always get quoted net prices (without VAT), no matter if 15 meters or 500 meters is the minimum order.

I think a good example why a company should never calculate with VAT is that there is no VAT included in the salaries you pay. Let's say:

In one month, your company buys products for 5950 € incl. 19 % VAT.
You have 1 employee which costs you 4000 € (including social security).
You sell your products for 11900 € incl. VAT.

So what is your profit? If you don't remember that salaries are without VAT you will come to 1950/1.19 = 1638.66. Actually it's 1000 €, and the easiest way to get there is to disregard VAT for business calculations and just think of your supply bills as 5000 € net and your revenues as 10.000 € net. If you don't believe me please ask an accountant.