Shoppers save on pre-sales tax stock
What if every store was having a sale but no one knew about it? Well, there is a sale of sorts on that you may not have noticed in your rush to buy your supplies for the long weekend. But after the holidays you may want to take a stroll down the aisles of your favorite shops and see what bargains you find. The reason for the price reductions is the repeal of the VAT. And from now until all of their current stock is gone, merchants across the country are rolling back prices. Of course they will be applying the new 8 percent sales tax on all new shipments but in the meantime you may want to stock up on those pampers, or even buy a new set of dishes or tools. News Five went shopping on Albert Street today to find out how customers are benefiting from the price reductions. We visited the Thrift and Book Center, Footlocker, Hofius and Romac’s. In each case we found a slightly different method being used to give the VAT back.
Ann Lake, Office Manager, Book Center
“We had to work overtime yesterday. We had to do re-pricing; a lot of it is not finished so we have to have extra staff stationed in the Thrift Center so that they can work with the customers and the cashiers. This is causing the customers unnecessary delay.”
Kishore Bhojwani, Sales Representative, Footlocker
“As far as price tags, not all stores have. The customers I believe have a way of knowing themselves because Belize is small. Customers are the same and these same customers keep coming around and when they see this tennis was a hundred dollars and now it drop to eighty or eighty five or whatever they know it. And of course many items in the store have tags but for the ones that don’t believe me people know.”
John Crump, Hofius
“Having got rid of the killa VAT, it appears fairly obvious that very few people really understand what’s happening. What’s happening is that all the inventory that is here now there will be no VAT on it; it’ll be reduced by the amount of the VAT which is 13 percent. So what we are doing is that everything that is selling from now on until this stock finishes will be a 13 percent discount. VAT is 15 percent on so if you have 100 plus 15 that’s 115. When you take it off it’s 13 percent off of 115.
I think the public should go around and see what’s going on. I assume that everybody is doing the same as us but I don’t know. But as far as we’re concerned you get 13 percent off everything today which is the VAT; we’re giving the VAT back.”
Wayne McNab of Romac’s told News Five they used their computer network to change the prices on the five thousand items they sell. He says they subtracted the difference between the outgoing VAT and the incoming 8 percent sales tax to come up with the new price for each item. He says they decided this method made the most administrative sense since the adjustment would only have to be carried out once, and customers would not be confused by several price reductions and increases in a single item. Brodies is giving a full fifteen percent discount on all items not zero rated for VAT.
