But do they serve it in KILTS?? Well it is Ireland...

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Fred in Skirts
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But do they serve it in KILTS?? Well it is Ireland...

Post by Fred in Skirts »

I tend to eat a lot of Subway sandwiches. And I am skirted when I go in the shop. I have never had a bad sandwich or a bad comment in any of the shops.

Subway bread isn't bread, Irish court says

LONDON (AP) — Ireland’s Supreme Court has ruled that bread sold by the fast food chain Subway contains so much sugar that it cannot be legally defined as bread.

The ruling came in a tax dispute brought by Bookfinders Ltd., an Irish Subway franchisee, which argued that some of its takeaway products - including teas, coffees and heated sandwiches - were not liable for value-added tax.

A panel of judges rejected the appeal Tuesday, ruling that the bread sold by Subway contains too much sugar to be categorized as a “staple food,” which is not taxed.

“There is no dispute that the bread supplied by Subway in its heated sandwiches has a sugar content of 10% of the weight of the flour included in the dough, and thus exceeds the 2% specified,” the judgement read.

The law makes a distinction between “bread as a staple food” and other baked goods “which are, or approach, confectionery or fancy baked goods,” the judgement said.

Subway disagreed with the characterization in a statement.

“Subway’s bread is, of course, bread,” the company said in an email. “We have been baking fresh bread in our restaurants for more than three decades and our guests return each day for sandwiches made on bread that smells as good as it tastes.”

Bookfinders was appealing a 2006 decision by authorities who refused to refund value-added tax payments. Lower courts had dismissed the case before it reached the Supreme Court.

Subway said it was reviewing the latest tax ruling. It added that the decision was based on an outdated bread exemption set by the Irish government that was updated in 2012.

Just another way to tax the poor business man......
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Re: But do they serve it in KILTS?? Well it is Ireland...

Post by Shilo »

Fred in Skirts wrote: Sat Oct 03, 2020 1:43 am 2012
[quote="Fred in Skirts" post_id=218385

Just another way to tax the poor business man......
[/quote]


Surely it’s their customers who ultimately pay the tax. If they were allowed exemption then Subway could claim back from the taxman all the Vat they paid without passing it on to the customer.
:roll:
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Re: But do they serve it in KILTS?? Well it is Ireland...

Post by Ray »

Good for the courts!

Subway food is appalling. I last experienced their produce in 2005.

If this improves food standards, then so much the better. Sugar is foul stuff. It’s really bad for you.
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Re: But do they serve it in KILTS?? Well it is Ireland...

Post by rode_kater »

Businesses don't pay VAT, they merely collect it. Customers bought the buns at a price including VAT. If it turns out that the VAT was incorrectly applied then Subway would retroactively have to consider the buns to have been sold at a lower price (ex VAT) than they put in the books, which obviously hits their bottom line. Though that means they owe less company tax, so there's that.

I think this is the reason NL has restaurants/cafes/supermarkets all charge food they make themselves at the low VAT rate, to avoid these kinds of discussions. With VAT simpler rules is always better.
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Re: But do they serve it in KILTS?? Well it is Ireland...

Post by denimini »

I have eaten a few "subways" thinking they were a healthy option but 10% sugar ............ Nay! Yes they sould heavily tax sugar (like tobacco) and put the proceeds towards Medicare, NHS or ???? in the US.

My first venture into a Subway store was years ago visiting Sydney and wanting to catch a train .......... I pushed through some double swinging doors ............... and ended up in the kitchen. :oops:
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Re: But do they serve it in KILTS?? Well it is Ireland...

Post by moonshadow »

denimini wrote: Sat Oct 03, 2020 11:50 am Yes they sould heavily tax sugar (like tobacco) and put the proceeds towards Medicare, NHS or ???? in the US.
Some cities (like NYC I've been told) do tax sugary sodas, but sandwich bread may be pushing it.

As for creating a tax and funding "???? (in the US), I'd say the last thing we want is sugar taxes, more public funding going towards the American "beast" better know as the health "care" industry. As our medical system is private and for profit, it is to the benefit if the companies that run the system to keep us as unhealthy as possible.

More sick people means more profit!

And profiting off of peoples misery is as American as apple pie it seems... we love it that way, and woe to anyone who dare suggest a change in course.

Anyway, different states set different tax rates here, and I don't believe any state does a value added tax. As far as Virginia goes (one of the two states that I know about, Tennessee being the other), Virginia taxes take out or restaurant prepared food at varying rates depending on the locality. I've seen it as low as 10% and seems as high as 12% maybe even 13% in places. This applies to all restaurants whether you're buying a Subway sandwich, a latte at Starbucks, a cheeseburger, or a trendy dish from Panera Bread.

I bring this up just to make the point that Virginia (and most of not all other states I assume) make no distinction between healthy restaurant food and non healthy, its all taxed the same, and in Virginia anyway, carries some of the highest taxes there are.

FWIW, the grocery tax in VA is 2.5% and applies to everything grocery related from staple items, to sugary snacks, to energy drinks, and I believe the food stamp program allows the purchase of the same items.

It would be an interesting discussion to see how a U.S. national Healthcare system (Medicare for all) would change the current tax structure for unhealthy food.

However junk food addicts like myself need not worry... it will be a cold day in hell before we have anything like that. As they say, such an arrangement would put is squarely into fascism, communism, socialism, dictatorships, and all sorts of other nasties. Funny... I didn't realize Canada, the U.K., etc were such awful places (medically speaking) until my politicians told me so... and they never lie, but I digress...

To pull this back on topic, yes I suppose if unhealthy food options are taxing your publicly funded national Healthcare system, then it seems appropriate that those items should carry heavier taxes. Perhaps this could be part of the "socialist control" the far right rails on about here stateside... and to be fair... I can understand their concern.
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Re: But do they serve it in KILTS?? Well it is Ireland...

Post by rode_kater »

moonshadow wrote: Sat Oct 03, 2020 1:50 pm To pull this back on topic, yes I suppose if unhealthy food options are taxing your publicly funded national Healthcare system, then it seems appropriate that those items should carry heavier taxes. Perhaps this could be part of the "socialist control" the far right rails on about here stateside... and to be fair... I can understand their concern.
Well, obesity is becoming extremely common and is implicated in all sorts of health issues. It's essentially preventative medicine: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Whether it's publicly funded system is actually not relevant: the costs of heath care go up as obesity goes up. So the health care premiums in the US go even higher than they already are. Not addressing it an option.

What a (partially) publicly funded system does do is lay the link between people's behaviours and the costs. If the costs exceed the premiums the rest has to be filled in by general taxes and so it is interesting for politicians to do whatever they can to reduce costs. And that includes sugar taxes, though the goal is actually to encourage soft drink makers to reduce the sugar in their drinks. It would make the zero-sugar varieties significantly cheaper than the sugery ones.

This is not really related to Subway though, bread gets converted to sugar anyway so how much sugar it is before you eat it makes not much difference. You shouldn't be using VAT this way anyway. The whole point of VAT is a simple rate structure that applies everywhere and abolishing all other consumption taxes.

This is probably why VAT won't happen in the US anyway: you cannot set rates at a local level anymore, it would have to be state level or higher. And the money is not collected in the places where the value is added so you need a redistribution mechanism and that's tricky with 50 states. I saw the discussions in Australia and it's still a thing I think after ~20 years. The benefit however is that you get a much bigger tax base, namely including all services, which is the bulk of a modern economy. And you're taxing value creation rather than just consumption.
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