LoveThemCoins

1 minute ago, Pete said:

My advance apologies as this is now moving off topic but a response is merited -

Unfortunately in many instances your choice of MP is either the monkey or the organ grinder, neither of which is suitable.
Your choice is red or blue and other colours have little prospect of making any noticeable changes.
I don't recall if it was Singapore or Hong Kong a couple of generations ago, abolished all tax so whatever your earned you kept.
The other side of the coin however was that nothing was free - you paid for kids education, health, no welfare etc.
No freebies and no cash for sitting on your arse all day watching TV expecting someone else to feed you, raise your kids and pay your bills.
In some countries in the EU if you get ill and are in hospital you pay a daily rate for your bed and you need to order in food or have a partner or friend bring food for you.
I know of someone undergoing daily chemo that lives in his car, parked in the hospital carpark rather than pay for a bed.
Too many things in the UK are free and consequently abused but have to be paid for by taxing everyone to the hilt either through PAYE or VAT.

I agree with everything you have said. People get the MPs they deserve.

8 minutes ago, silversky said:

I don't believe that I'm making a claim about the Royal Mint selling a lot of silver through Europe without evidence.  It may be circumstantial but I simply don't believe that it's possible that there are any large buyers of physical silver in the whole of Europe (including the UK) who didn't know that the German dealers are the cheapest.  None.

If we start with the rich, they aren't foolish or naïve enough not to compare costs across the channel.  They didn't get rich by being lazy and not bothering to do a simple price comparison, and they don't tend to invest large sums of money without doing a bit of research first.  Most medium and small investors receive some form of investment advice either from a professional or in the form of a magazine such as moneyweek.  Not a month goes by without moneyweek making some reference to precious metals with a reminder to look abroad to secure silver at the correct price.

Perhaps there are a few people who start out spontaneously and make a few small purchases, but they very quickly find this forum or a facebook page or even reddit and are alerted to the price difference.  This is why it is highly likely that the bulk of Royal Mint silver bought all over Europe (including the UK) has been bought under German differential VAT schemes or through Estonia VAT free.

The simple truth is that Germany runs the European physical Silver market and that is NOT an accident!   It was captured by design and was UK short sightedness that allowed the situation to develop.  Germany deliberately allows the so-called loophole differential scheme, whilst enforcing an EU wide blanket requirement for everyone else to charge VAT at standard rates.  Estonia's politicians already capitulated to this requirement ages ago and it's just about timing their implementation.  It may now already have taken place but there is no move to close down German dealers and their 'loophole'.  Until we left the EU there was no way ever that we would be granted the right to copy Germany.  The whole purpose of that 'loophole' was to drive bullion business to German shores.  Different nations were granted different economies by the EU.  France and Italy have been granted agriculture which is why every workaround and incentive is geared towards serving them.  It's no coincidence that Germany has the high tech, automotive, bullion and finance markets.  This is the high end stuff and it reflects their status as the senior partner within the EU.

Now that we're out of this silly central planning scheme it would be wise of our government to abandon this disincentive mechanism because it no longer drives our business towards the German dealers as intended.  Instead it now applies a tax which no one ever paid which will damage our Royal Mint.  Applying a 20% tax to the market overnight will definitely reduce demand inside the UK.  I don't care what anyone says, applying a 20% upfront tax to a market overnight has a definite chilling effect.

British residents are the big buyers of (higher than standard bullion premium) Royal Mint products because of the CGT benefit which they confer.  But, it's a lure because you have to be a big buyer for this to be of much benefit and paying 20% tax upfront kind of takes the shine off that.  I foresee the Royal Mint scaling back their product lines in Silver as many British residents look to invest elsewhere.  It costs a lot of money to go through the set up for new products and why would they bother if half of their market finds something else to invest in such as bitcoin.

Now it's certainly true that some Americans, Europeans and Asians (also Ozzies) like to buy a few interesting Royal Mint products (which come at higher premiums lets not forget), but I do not believe that the bulk of their stacks are made up of Royal Mint products.  Why would they be?  There is no CGT relief for foreign residents and so no incentive to pay the higher premiums.  Ounce for ounce, it's usually better to buy the cheapest ounce you can.

The argument that many will switch to Royal Mint gold certainly does hold water.  However, even the smallest piece of bog standard gold is rather expensive these days for many people.  Clearly some people will continue to buy Silver and pay their tax upfront, some will make the switch to gold but many will simply find other things to invest in which aren't taxed upfront.  Tax upfront makes an investment very unappealing.  It will definitely result in a loss of sales for the Royal Mint which is why the smart thing for our government to do now would be to match the German margin scheme.  We no longer have to comply with driving business over to Germany and so the messed up disincentive to our market should be abolished.

For anyone that doubts that Germany is the major player in the physical bullion market I suggest a look at this German bullion dealer comparison site "gold.de".  Select any silver coin that you want and the sheer number of silver dealers listing it in Germany makes it quite apparent.  No one in Europe pays full VAT and most British residents won't either.  They will simply stop buying Royal Mint silver and the mint will be forced to mothball some of it's product lines.

I assume you are basically saying tax evasion is rife.

14 minutes ago, BackyardBullion said:

Yes, I totally agree. But why force all small businesses all over the world to register with HMRC and file quarterly VAT returns even if they have only one or two sales to the UK.

We are already seeing many companies around the world flat out refuse to ship to the UK because the added burden of VAT registration in the UK is too much for them to handle. 

That is what stifles imports to the UK and will ultimately make the UK consumer pay in either additional costs on the product (which by the way means relatively more tax too - higher unit costs mean more VAT is applied) or inferior products. 

Taxation is agreed upon by our elected representatives.

I would prefer to live in a tax-free system but society depends upon it.

Now we have the opportunity to elect MPs with a mandate to change the tax system to what we want rather then what is dictated to us.

Use your vote wisely!

2 minutes ago, BackyardBullion said:

I agree that promoting buying British is good. But lets be honest, our bullion dealers are not the cheapest by any means and are uncompetitive even without VAT. So many other products also are not very easily made in the UK and to have the rest of the world not want to sell to us is not good for British businesses that have supply chains outside the UK.

Ultimately we are an island with finite resources, there are not a lot of products and businesses that can only use materials and goods sourced in Britain. At some point in nearly every supply chain we need imports. 

Sorry, if tax is due tax should be collected. 

Surely a lot of the companies importing into the UK have done well by evading UK VAT on a massive scale.

Is it not good that the VAT man can now charge the appropriate tax on imported goods, levelling up the playing field for domestic retailers?