Interesting. So where does the VP of tax think the increased costs of 2.4 million a week are coming from ?
Im assuming then he no plan to pass any of the increased costs on to the end user ?
Is the 120 million year 1 costs with wto agreement or ongoing year on year.
Just interested to hear what the headline figure is comprised of and how the figure was arrived at considering how much is unknown at the moment and how much is being guessed at.
The majority of that amount is based on how much goods we import from EU, that would be charged duty/tax under WTO. The rest is based on good imported from outside the EU, getting a reduced duty/ tax rate vs WTO being part of EU.
As to passing it down to the consumer, I am sure some of it will, although the industry is v competitive and pricing transparent, so customers might vote w their feet - but even if we are passing it on, the nation as a whole gets a hit. So a negative sum game.
That cost will be on going unless we decide to stop importing and shrink our business. I am sure you’re about to tell me we could just make that in the UK (and hence suppress the need for import), but without providing you with privileged info (listed company), you will just have to trust me when I tell you it is very unlikely and def impossible to shift as much in the short term.
What I can assure you is that a lot of our competitors will go bust - as they are barely making money today. Again a negative sum game that will create a lot of job losses.
Politically it’s easy though as Boris now has the perfect scape goat to blame this on... Covid !