buck Posted August 19, 2011 Share Posted August 19, 2011 Price of an item includes VAT in the UK. I don't know how much that is today. Price of an item in USA does not include State Tax, which is dependent on which state you're in when you buy it. Connecticut charges 6%, which is about the average, New Hampshire charges nothing, not even on liquor or tobacco, and has no income tax, that's probably why I can't afford to live there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Halibut Posted August 19, 2011 Share Posted August 19, 2011 I'm not sure what you're complaining about really - you got a product that you want at a great price. What's not to smile about? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rupert_Baehr Posted August 19, 2011 Share Posted August 19, 2011 UK VAT is now 20%. Does Connecticut require you to pay sales tax on items you purchase online through an out-of-State store? I understand some states do (or are trying to) and there have been (so far unsuccessful) attempts to make online retailers collect State taxes for all States. New Hampshire: Live, Freeze and Die Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
buck Posted August 19, 2011 Share Posted August 19, 2011 The land that my house in Florida stands on is worth about $22,500. (I know that because I had originally intended to build my own house, had bought a piece of land and sold it back to the housing association at the same time that I bought the house.) I paid $97,500 for the house. Subtract $22,500 and the structure was worth $75,000. Ignoring the difference in land prices (and building land is more expensive in Sheffield than in the US) what sort of house would you expect in Sheffield for £47,000? I did get a bargain - the housing market there is depressed (and the planned closures at Canaveral aren't going to help the local economy much.) My previous house (in Mississippi) was on half an acre of land and the land cost (at that time, when house prices in the US were at their peak) £15000. Land is very cheap there. The house itself (2500 sq ft, 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms) cost an additional £85,000. How much house would £85,000 have bought in Sheffield before the prices dropped? Car prices (and boat prices) in the US are indeed very cheap - but it's not true to say that everything is cheap. Food prices in the US are (slightly) higher than they are in the UK. American servicemen in the UK have their own grocery store (the Commissary) which sells at "cost + 5%". The patrons do buy US branded items (and beef) there, but most of them do a significant amount of their shopping in Tesco and Sainsbury. The Commissary is reckoned to be cheaper than Supermarkets in the US. My inlaw Fred sold his house here and bought a used trailer on a 55plus park in Fort Myers FL for the princely sum of $4000.00. It has a new roof which counts for something in Florida, that destroyer of trailer roofs. The park has a swimming pool and community hall. The site fee is $ 250.00 a month. The park is also gated with a security guard in place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crookesey Posted August 19, 2011 Author Share Posted August 19, 2011 I'm not sure what you're complaining about really - you got a product that you want at a great price. What's not to smile about? Thanks for sharing that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crookesey Posted August 19, 2011 Author Share Posted August 19, 2011 The land that my house in Florida stands on is worth about $22,500. (I know that because I had originally intended to build my own house, had bought a piece of land and sold it back to the housing association at the same time that I bought the house.) I paid $97,500 for the house. Subtract $22,500 and the structure was worth $75,000. Ignoring the difference in land prices (and building land is more expensive in Sheffield than in the US) what sort of house would you expect in Sheffield for £47,000? I did get a bargain - the housing market there is depressed (and the planned closures at Canaveral aren't going to help the local economy much.) My previous house (in Mississippi) was on half an acre of land and the land cost (at that time, when house prices in the US were at their peak) £15000. Land is very cheap there. The house itself (2500 sq ft, 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms) cost an additional £85,000. How much house would £85,000 have bought in Sheffield before the prices dropped? Car prices (and boat prices) in the US are indeed very cheap - but it's not true to say that everything is cheap. Food prices in the US are (slightly) higher than they are in the UK. American servicemen in the UK have their own grocery store (the Commissary) which sells at "cost + 5%". The patrons do buy US branded items (and beef) there, but most of them do a significant amount of their shopping in Tesco and Sainsbury. The Commissary is reckoned to be cheaper than Supermarkets in the US. In the US you are allowed to build with much cheaper materials, our brick/stone cavity and breeze would still be expensive in the states. Over here a 750 square metre plot in a good area would cost in the order of £200K, a 4 bed, 2 bath, double garage detached construction would cost circa £200K, this would then value at around £500K. Our planners appear to think that modern constructions are going to last for hundreds of years, which they clearly won't. You guys have got it right, my wife's cousin and her husband live in a gated complex home with communal pool and grounds, I think that it cost around $110k. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rupert_Baehr Posted August 19, 2011 Share Posted August 19, 2011 In the US you are allowed to build with much cheaper materials, our brick/stone cavity and breeze would still be expensive in the states. Over here a 750 square meter plot in a good area would cost in the order of £200K, a 4 bed, 2 bath, double garage detached construction would cost circa £200K, this would then value at around £500K. Our planners appear to think that modern constructions are going to last for hundreds of years, which they clearly won't. You guys have got it right, my wife's cousin and her husband live in a gated complex home with communal pool and grounds, I think that it cost around $110k. It depends where you build. 'New Build' (and that includes re-build) in Florida has to comply with current building regs ('solid' construction - poured concrete or brick.) If you replace your windows or doors they have to meet insulation standards and must either have hurricane shutters or be 'hurricane proof' [penetration proof] glass. External doors must open outwards (so the hurricane blows them against the architrave, not against the lock) and garage doors (the weakest part of a building) are reinforced heavily. By how much did house prices increase during the period 1997-2007 in Sheffield? (I lived in Norfolk then and house prices there more than trebled during that period.) Building costs (materials and labour) didn't increase by anywhere near that much, so surely the prices were inflated artificially? I seem to remember house prices rising by 20% or more per annum. - That's ridiculous. My 'other home' (summer home) is in Bavaria. Building land here is in very short supply. You can't build on the mountains, you can't build on agricultural land and there's not a lot left after you've taken out those. Apparently, 85% of Germans who don't live here wish they did - so prices are high. Building land in a rural village will cost you £360 per square metre (I saw a piece in the Estate agent down the road) so a 750 sq metre plot (which you would be hard-put to find) would cost you about £270k. If you were looking for a similar plot in Garmisch-Partenkirchen - dream on! (if you could find it, it would be over a £1Million. - Prices there are really silly. (It's 'tourist town' and almost everyting costs more there than it does 5 miles away. If you were to buy a 750 Sq m plot around here, you would probably pay something like £200k to put that 4-bed 2 bath house on it - but the house would also have a full cellar, the insulation would be to the standards of EnEv2007 (really good), the walls would be 30cm of insulated brick (this sort of stuff, which is amazingly efficient) the floors (and ceilings) would be reinforced concrete and the house's predicted lifespan would be hundreds of years. - The Germans build to last. My house here is a 3-bed 1.5 bath 1800sq ft house with a full cellar. I pay about £30 a month for gas [which costs more here than it does in the UK. I keep the house at 21'C and burn about 1000 cu metres a year] Winter temperatures of -18 are not unusual. (One of the houses I was looking at in Sheffield had velux windows in the roof ... but the distance from the inner layer of plasterboard to the glass was about 4". I too have velux windows, but the distance from the inner plasterboard to the glass is 18". ... How do you get a foot of insulation into a 4-inch space?) The Germans seem to have managed to avoid some of the excesses seen in the UK housing market. The first time I was around here was in about 1985. At that time, I owned a house near Ely which had cost me £43,000. (Both my wife and I had good jobs and we could afford such fabulously expensive houses.) A building plot in Oberammergau (a few miles up the hill) cost 200,000DM (about 5 times as much as our house.) Today, the same building plot would cost you about 250,000 Euros - 2.5 times as much as it cost then. The house I owned near Ely would cost you over £430,000. - Ten times as much as it cost then. The Germans stopped property speculation by introducing hefty taxes to discourage it. - Keep your house for 10 years and you can do what you like; sell it earlier and you will be hammered on the profit. People do move and if they can't afford to buy and sell houses, then they have to rent them. The State can't afford to build loads of houses (a fact which isn't too readily accepted in the UK) so the German government offers considerable tax incentives to Landlords. Rents are controlled (and are generally pretty reasonable) standards are controlled (and the controls are strict) but German landlords get significant tax breaks. Most people are happy. The majority rent (and get a fair deal for their money) landlords get good and reliable tenants (if a tenant does a runner, the government will track him down) and house price inflation is minimal. There are losers, of course. The TV companies can't get away with 'Properdee' shows which exhort people to 'Snap up this bargain for a mere £650,000, spend another £50K on it and you should be able to sell it to some poor sucker for a Million.' A good deal for the Estate Agents, but does a lot of damage to society. 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buck Posted August 19, 2011 Share Posted August 19, 2011 UK VAT is now 20%. Does Connecticut require you to pay sales tax on items you purchase online through an out-of-State store? I understand some states do (or are trying to) and there have been (so far unsuccessful) attempts to make online retailers collect State taxes for all States. New Hampshire: Live, Freeze and Die CT does not at this moment, but our new Democrat governor is intent on driving everybody who doesn't live in Fairfield County out of the State. The majority of that county work in NYC and are beaucoup riche. BTW they breed em tough in Nampshire. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
upinwath Posted August 20, 2011 Share Posted August 20, 2011 Taxes and union hyped high labour costs have made the UK very expensive. A small Honda scooter. http://www.honda.co.uk/motorcycles/scooters/#!/vision110/ Vision 110 Standard Model £1,800 It has a different name out here to go the the different price. = 924.276 GBP Taxes imposed by several governments coupled with the silly union power forces crazy wage rises and inflation around the 70s gave you this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rupert_Baehr Posted August 20, 2011 Share Posted August 20, 2011 Taxes and union hyped high labour costs have made the UK very expensive. ... You could possibly be right - but I'm not so sure. There is no company in the UK which manufactures that scooter (or anything like it.) AFAIR (I don't know current prices - so if anybody can help me, please do) a 50cc 'twist and go' is gong to cost more than (or about) £800 in the UK? Over here, I can go into a hardware store (not a vehicle dealer ) and buy a 'roller' for about £380 (and that includes VAT!) I don't have to pay 'delivery charges' or 'preparation charges' or 'initial registration charges'. The bike comes with a certificate of origin (that's all the paperwork I need) the manufacturer/wholesaler delivered it to the shop (just as the ydeliver other items - why should I pay a 'special charge'? Produce proof of insurance, a TüV (came with the bike and because it's a new machine, it's valid for 3 years) and buy a plate. Off you go. There are a lot of people in the UK who are out of work. - Very sad. There are some people in the UK who are in productive work. - Very good. There re also a lot of people in the UK who work hard doing jobs which make work for people who have a lot of work to do. -They can't help it, but it puts the prices up a bit. As I mentioned earlier, I can buy a roller (50cc scooter) here for about £380. That's here. I would buy the scooter from a hardware store. (They sell allsots of stuff in hardware stores - here.) In the UK, I would have to buy it from a 'bike dealer. - He would've bought it from a wholesaler (the hardware shop.) Is the 'bike dealer'supposed to work for nothing? I (the potential purchaser) didn't ask to have him as a middle man, but who is going to pay his commission? (Don't be daft! - We;'re talking about the UK - You are.) Then I have to register the bike. First of all, there's an 'Initial vehicle registration fee'. Why? Would it be possible to register a bike using a second vehicle registration? Don't be silly, Rupert - this is Treasure Island. Only 30% of the people generate wealth, but everybody has to be paid. Pay up and shut up. Prices in the UK are ridiculously high because a comparatively small number of people are employed in productive work. This tiny group (who work like hell!) generate the real wealth of the country. There is a rather larger sector who work diligently (and work long hours, too) but they don't actually generate any wealth. - They do the stuff you need, but they don't make anything - and although they might add VAT to their charges - they add bugger-all of value. That's not their fault. I'll cut through the cap I was going to write: Prices are lower in the US, because out of every 10 people: 1 is unemployed. 5 Work for the government/in service industries 4. Generate the wealth. In the UK: 1.2 are unemployed 8 work for the government/work in service industries 0.8 generate the wealth. You can't blame anybody (apart from the w ankers politicians. Everybody has to eat - including the middle-men. Isn't it about time that the people of the developed countries held their politicians personally accountable? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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