Will VAT going up affect Retail badly?

[SallyA]

Grrrr VAT is going back up to 17.5% again in January :( I can't believe all this is chopping and changing, its getting quite confusing!!!!

See the article here - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8404398.stm

All of this happening must be at quite a high cost to retail organisations though. Imagine the cost of re-pricing everything- especially in the bigger stores! It must be quite substantial don't you think?

This coupled with the proposed rises in National Insurance will surely affect businesses? I mean anyone in a job paying more than 20k a year will be affected by this!

Do you think that due to the cost of implementing all these changes that jobs could be lost? I mean surely this cannot help the current economy in anyway can it?

[m8internet]

This coupled with the proposed rises in National Insurance will surely affect businesses? I mean anyone in a job paying more than 20k a year will be affected by this
However, how many "normal" people in retail actually earn more than £20K per annum?
Equally, I had already noticed that many salaries were tagging at £19950
Did someone know something already?

The VAT rise will have little affect
Most large superstores have a considerable amount of non-VAT anyway
I saw very little price adjustment when the VAT went down, so I am expecting they will take this opportunity to put the prices up

However, what did happen last time was that some prices did go down but due to the large volume of price changes the old SEL (shelf edge label) could be left in place, and quite legal too
This time if the price does go up, then the SEL MUST be replaced

[SallyA]

Yes your probably right someone did probably know before hand! Your also right about the "normal" people earning more than 20k - but there are the odd few here and there! They will probably regret it now though don't you think?

Grrr more price rises in a sly way! Perhaps to save in the cost of replacing the labels they wont put them up hehe! Wishful thinking maybe?