British Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne on Thursday announced a review of how retailers at major airports in Britain collect sales tax from their customers.
The investigation, which is expected to be completed by early this year, comes after several retailers were accused of not passing along savings to consumers who bought items at major hubs including Heathrow Airport near London.
Regardless of their nationalities, passengers at British airports who are flying to destinations outside the EU are exempt from paying valued-added tax (VAT), which can reach 20 percent. The measure applies not only to duty-free stores, but also to retailers as varied as Boots UK Ltd, WHSmith PLC or Dixons Retail PLC.
However, some retailers at the country’s largest airports were found by the government to have been charging the additional tax in cases they were not allowed to, and keeping it rather than passing it on to tax authorities.
As a result, some travelers have refused to provide their boarding passes at cash registers. Airport retailers use boarding passes to determine whether customers are required to pay the sales tax, and the stores cannot claim rebates without that information.
The new investigation is to look at how retailers collect the sales tax from consumers traveling in the 28-member bloc and further afield. It was unclear whether the inquiry would result in fines for retailers or refunds for shoppers.
“VAT relief at airports is intended to cut prices for those travelers, not be a windfall gain for shops,” Osborne said in a statement on Thursday, adding that some retailers had been keeping half of every pound (US$1.47) of potential tax savings owed to individuals.
“Many people could be paying over the odds for their purchases, because the government’s VAT concession isn’t passed on,” he added.
This is not the first time that the British government has warned retailers about how they collect taxes from shoppers at airports. In August last year, the British Treasury scolded retailers at British airports, saying they should reduce prices for customers who are not required to pay value-added tax.
“While many retailers do pass this saving on to customers, it is disappointing that some are choosing not to,” Treasury official David Gauke said in August. “We urge all airside retailers to use this relief for the benefit of their customers.”
COMPETITION: AMD, Intel and Qualcomm are unveiling new laptop and desktop parts in Las Vegas, arguing their technologies provide the best performance for AI workloads Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD), the second-biggest maker of computer processors, said its chips are to be used by Dell Technologies Inc for the first time in PCs sold to businesses. The chipmaker unveiled new processors it says would make AMD-based PCs the best at running artificial intelligence (AI) software. Dell has decided to use the chips in some of its computers aimed at business customers, AMD executives said at CES in Las Vegas on Monday. Dell’s embrace of AMD for corporate PCs — it already uses the chipmaker for consumer devices — is another blow for Intel Corp as the company
MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday said it is teaming up with Nvidia Corp to develop a new chip for artificial intelligence (AI) supercomputers that uses architecture licensed from Arm Holdings PLC. The new product is targeting AI researchers, data scientists and students rather than the mass PC market, the company said. The announcement comes as MediaTek makes efforts to add AI capabilities to its Dimensity chips for smartphones and tablets, Genio family for the Internet of Things devices, Pentonic series of smart TVs, Kompanio line of Arm-based Chromebooks, along with the Dimensity auto platform for vehicles. MeidaTek, the world’s largest chip designer for smartphones
TECH PULL: Electronics heavyweights also attracted strong buying ahead of the CES, analysts said. Meanwhile, Asian markets were mixed amid Trump’s incoming presidency Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) shares yesterday closed at a new high in the wake of a rally among tech stocks on Wall Street on Friday, moving the TAIEX sharply higher by more than 600 points. TSMC, the most heavily weighted stock in the TAIEX, rose 4.65 percent to close at a new high of NT$1,125, boosting its market value to NT$29.17 trillion (US$888 billion) and contributing about 400 points to the TAIEX’s rise. The TAIEX ended up 639.41 points, or 2.79 percent, at 23,547.71. Turnover totaled NT$406.478 billion, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. The surge in TSMC follows a positive performance
FUTURE TECH: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang would give the keynote speech at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, which is also expected to highlight autonomous vehicles Gadgets, robots and vehicles imbued with artificial intelligence (AI) would once again vie for attention at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this week, as vendors behind the scenes would seek ways to deal with tariffs threatened by US president-elect Donald Trump. The annual Consumer Electronics Show opens formally in Las Vegas tomorrow, but preceding days are packed with product announcements. AI would be a major theme of the show, along with autonomous vehicles ranging from tractors and boats to lawn mowers and golf club trollies. “Everybody is going to be talking about AI,” Creative Strategies Inc analyst Carolina Milanesi said. “From fridges to ovens
RSS