And what happens when 9% VAT is inevitably too high
Ask me arse
marquess_rostrevor on
I too need lower taxes to survive, thanks!
RebelGrin on
How about they stop asking 9 euro for a pint which cost 50 cent to make. Or selling a fucking burger for 15 euro.
RemnantOfSpotOn on
Lol why is your restaurant or pretentious coffee shop more deserving of this benefit then other family owned businesses like hardware shops for example struggling and battling with amazon
sure_look_this_is_it on
It sounds like the industry is badly managed if they can’t pay the bare minimum of tax but can afford a nationwide marketing campaign to pay less tax.
External-Chemical-71 on
I would have left tbh. Moaning cunts. They would take the VAT cut into the back pocket and raise their prices the next day.
devhaugh on
It’s not the fact that you probably wouldn’t get change out of €10 for a coffee and a pastry that’s causing decline in your industry.
You’re lucky to be on 13.5% and not 23%!
AhhhhBiscuits on
Look I get it…
But, some never reduced the prices when it was put down to 9%. We had menus from a few places saved on our phones and compared. But when it went back up, they put the prices up.
Yes overheads are more, insurance has gone up and the cost of supplies has gone up substantially. The cost of Sugar and flour has doubled. Not sure of coffee….( I have one flat white a day and I make it in work)
I’ve heard places ay people aren’t going out as much, but I wouldn’t fully agree with that. Might depend on where I am going I suppose. I do like going out for dinner, but it is expensive.
But i will be partaking in some pizza from Coke Lane in next few days because I need a few hours out with the husband with some nice pizza and the meatballs are back on menu boys!
BobbyKonker on
Didn’t they try a reduced VAT rate before and the hospitality industry just continued to gouge customers so it was revoked.
The cheek.
Expert-Fig-5590 on
The restaurants don’t pay VAT the customers do. The restaurants just collect it for the Government. When the Government cut the VAT rate the restaurants didn’t pass on the savings to their customers and so took money it should have been collecting for the government and put it in their own pockets. Fuck em.
Massive-Foot-5962 on
At least its not as obnoxious as the chippers campaigning for less card payments, so they can avoid tax
WellWellWell2021 on
The future of my business in your establishment depends on you figuring out that 3.50 for a cup of tea and €4 for a bun is too much.
Good luck on your journey.
Odd_Barnacle_3908 on
If 4% tax cut is holding your business together, it’s time to face reality.
Liamario on
If the VAT goes down they pocket the benefit, if it goes back up the customer pays the price. Your business isn’t viable. Nothing lasts forever. Culture changes and what society did once does not mean it will do it forever. Many restaurants are doing well and many are no longer viable. You’re entitled to make a living, you’re not entitled to success.
sabhaistecabaiste on
Reduce my paye, then I’ll have more money for overpriced coffee and muffins
Grand-Cup-A-Tea on
If VAT was reduced, would retailers pass that VAT reduction on to consumers? Last time it happened, many didnt.
RogerFederer4 on
Boy who cried wolf story here
sergeantorourke on
Lowering the tax doesn’t necessarily mean lowering prices it gives the owners the option to hold them longer. Most coffee shops and cafes have a tough time turning a profit. I’d rather give a hard working business owner a shot at success than give more money to a government that can’t figure out how to use the resources it’s gifted to serve its citizens.
eo37 on
Maybe if the hospitality sector didn’t gouge the life out of the public when you got a VAT reduction before…you might have got a minuscule piece of sympathy
Specialist-Flow3015 on
Any business who puts up signs like these should also have to say how much they’re paying staff.
So tired of businesses shouting about how hard it is to get by while not giving their employees enough for a decent standard of living.
Disastrous-Pair-715 on
And then proceeded to charge you close to a fiver for a coffee!!!
McGreed on
Please tell me where this was, so I can avoid it in the future and advise others to avoid it.
GodSlayer691 on
Allow the 9% if they reduce there costs to pre Covid levels0 gouging bastards!!!!!!
Tactical_Laser_Bream on
_That’ll be €5 for a frozen pastry please. Jam? That’s another €1. The burnt coffee? €5 please. Would you like to tip?_
Fuck off lads.
InfectedAztec on
When times are tough we’re all in this together. But when Cold Play or Taylor Swift is in Croker is €800 for a hotel room because fuck the consumer, what are they gonna do about it?
The hospitality industry had the support of the Irish people during Covid and turned around and gouged us for every penny they could in the years after.
Article on RTE about it now, interesting but not sure I fully believe it’s as bad as that.
dardirl on
I was in a restaurant a few weeks back and all staff were wearing shirts with something like “save your 9%” and all had badges on too with “9%” on them.
smelymadra on
Did working in Galway 5 weeks company was paying 220 room a night including breakfast an dinner. How the fuck they wanna have tourists coming with that rip off. Don’t know the deals between government and hotels about refugees and Ukrainians but won’t be suprise that’s current rates 😕
PaxUX on
Council tax and water rates are a bigger issue.
bdog1011 on
Ultimately all should pay the same tax and then let people decide which businesses they want to spend their money in.
If people want to go out – good for them. If they want take away that’s this choice of if they want to cook themselves.
The tax should be the same and then people decide if the extra cost is worth it. It is how all other product work. If they were paying a higher tax and wanted it brought in line then it would be different. But to ask for a subsidy vs other industries is ridiculous.
Willing-Departure115 on
If the future of your business relies on a 4.5% swing from 13.5% to 9% VAT, your business may not be viable. How can it hope to survive any other knocks.
Canadia86 on
Reminds me of that tragedy
SoloWingPixy88 on
Is there a fundamental misunderstanding as to what VAT is with Pubs and Cafes? They see it as a cost to them which it’s not. It’s also not like they’re passing this vat change on. Newspapers had the same and they pocketed the vat reduction.
Sprezzatura1988 on
I don’t understand how the VAT rate will affect crippling rents, energy prices, and the cost of supplies.
Educational-Pay4112 on
For those in the industry can you share how significant the 9% VAT rate is? It’s currently at 13.5% right? Will 4.5% really make or break your business?
thesame_as_before on
Most of the sound bite interviews of hospitality reps reference their margins heavily. ‘I’m working on a margin of 3%, 5% etc’. It’s clear that the narrative is ‘we need higher margins to give us headroom’ – which might be true for many smaller operators, but there is no sense that any of this will be passed to the consumer.
jhanley on
They should reduce the rate to 9% for restaurants only, not hotels or bars who are making bank off the back of the Asylum system.
futbolitoireland on
I dont understand all the commentary about passing on savings to the customer. Most of these places (not all) arent making enough profit to be a worthwhile venture. Profit is what the owner has left for themselves or to reinvest to grow their business.
I know a number of independent places who are running such low margins that the ownership are themselves working for minimum wage or less. All credit to all of you moaning about the cost of your pint the one day a week you frequent their business but I dont think someone should be forced to work 50+ hour weeks to sustain a business to provide to others for feck all money instead of getting a job doing something else.. but then we will lament the lack of options and competition and even nice places when all thats left is the big chains who can benefit from economies of scale and shit value.
The profit off a pint in a typical Dublin pub is about .10c to .15c to the publican currently. It may be .50c to make as one commentator suggested but its the likes of Diageo swallowing up that profit, not your local publican. Rates, wages, taxes and the absolute gouging of the massive suppliers in the market makes running a small food/drink business all but unsustainable. Yes prices are too high, yes were being gouged but youre honestly an idiot if you think its the small or local cafes or pubs and not the dominant oligopalistic players in the market and huge chains that are driving it or benefiting from it
aecolley on
We used to joke that lots of business owners would calculate their prices by dividing their desired annual receipts by last year’s total number of units sold, and then they’d despair that sales seemed to be vanishing.
PoppedCork on
Nah
briant543 on
For all those saying the decrease won’t be passed on to customers, of course it won’t, the reason they are campaigning for this is so they can increase margin without raising prices further. The amount of restaurants/pubs closing down at the moment is shocking. So when everyone mentions greedy business owners, who exactly are they talking about. If pubs and restaurants were all making so much money there wouldn’t be so many closing down.
I saw a comment from a guy on here that said in his pub because of costs, he’s making so little margin that if anything was to happen now that required some expense he would have to just close down.
I understand there are greedy business owners of course, but they are never going to pass this reduction onto the public. The whole reason they want it is to keep open, not make slightly more profit.
Garlic-Cheese-Chips on
That industry can piss off.
6 chips as a portion of chips. €3/4 for small bottles of minerals, ridiculous drink prices, ridiculous food prices, outrageous hotel prices, the slow creep of American tip culture being shoved on to bills. Gouge, gouge, gouge, gouge, gouge, gouge. Fuck your 9%.
its_brew on
Honestly have no sympathy anymore for the hospitality industry. They work their staff to the bone, pay them the minimum they can get away with. Overcharge the consumer, and the majority of services provided are extremely underwhelming and lacking the moneys worth of what was paid.
I used to be an advocate for going away the odd weekend and enjoying a night in a nice hotel. But it’s simply not worth it anymore.
Additional_Olive3318 on
The hospitality industry are saying that they need this to increase profits for them not improve prices for you.
Banania2020 on
More like 4.5% more in our pocket 
Specialist-Suit-2167 on
Future of the industry is not charging people €8 for a sandwich
earth-calling-karma on
Lower the VAT, cream the FAT – support our profit margins!
fillysunray on
I would maybe support lower rates for hospitality if the entire industry was unionised and the extra money went to the people actually working in the thick of it, who usually put up with absolute crap for minimum wage.
_PuRe_AdDicT_ on
“Help us…”
Meanwhile it’s €5 for the smallest Coke bottle they can put on the shelf
49 Comments
And what happens when 9% VAT is inevitably too high
Ask me arse
I too need lower taxes to survive, thanks!
How about they stop asking 9 euro for a pint which cost 50 cent to make. Or selling a fucking burger for 15 euro.
Lol why is your restaurant or pretentious coffee shop more deserving of this benefit then other family owned businesses like hardware shops for example struggling and battling with amazon
It sounds like the industry is badly managed if they can’t pay the bare minimum of tax but can afford a nationwide marketing campaign to pay less tax.
I would have left tbh. Moaning cunts. They would take the VAT cut into the back pocket and raise their prices the next day.
It’s not the fact that you probably wouldn’t get change out of €10 for a coffee and a pastry that’s causing decline in your industry.
You’re lucky to be on 13.5% and not 23%!
Look I get it…
But, some never reduced the prices when it was put down to 9%. We had menus from a few places saved on our phones and compared. But when it went back up, they put the prices up.
Yes overheads are more, insurance has gone up and the cost of supplies has gone up substantially. The cost of Sugar and flour has doubled. Not sure of coffee….( I have one flat white a day and I make it in work)
I’ve heard places ay people aren’t going out as much, but I wouldn’t fully agree with that. Might depend on where I am going I suppose. I do like going out for dinner, but it is expensive.
But i will be partaking in some pizza from Coke Lane in next few days because I need a few hours out with the husband with some nice pizza and the meatballs are back on menu boys!
Didn’t they try a reduced VAT rate before and the hospitality industry just continued to gouge customers so it was revoked.
The cheek.
The restaurants don’t pay VAT the customers do. The restaurants just collect it for the Government. When the Government cut the VAT rate the restaurants didn’t pass on the savings to their customers and so took money it should have been collecting for the government and put it in their own pockets. Fuck em.
At least its not as obnoxious as the chippers campaigning for less card payments, so they can avoid tax
The future of my business in your establishment depends on you figuring out that 3.50 for a cup of tea and €4 for a bun is too much.
Good luck on your journey.
If 4% tax cut is holding your business together, it’s time to face reality.
If the VAT goes down they pocket the benefit, if it goes back up the customer pays the price. Your business isn’t viable. Nothing lasts forever. Culture changes and what society did once does not mean it will do it forever. Many restaurants are doing well and many are no longer viable. You’re entitled to make a living, you’re not entitled to success.
Reduce my paye, then I’ll have more money for overpriced coffee and muffins
If VAT was reduced, would retailers pass that VAT reduction on to consumers? Last time it happened, many didnt.
Boy who cried wolf story here
Lowering the tax doesn’t necessarily mean lowering prices it gives the owners the option to hold them longer. Most coffee shops and cafes have a tough time turning a profit. I’d rather give a hard working business owner a shot at success than give more money to a government that can’t figure out how to use the resources it’s gifted to serve its citizens.
Maybe if the hospitality sector didn’t gouge the life out of the public when you got a VAT reduction before…you might have got a minuscule piece of sympathy
Any business who puts up signs like these should also have to say how much they’re paying staff.
So tired of businesses shouting about how hard it is to get by while not giving their employees enough for a decent standard of living.
And then proceeded to charge you close to a fiver for a coffee!!!
Please tell me where this was, so I can avoid it in the future and advise others to avoid it.
Allow the 9% if they reduce there costs to pre Covid levels0 gouging bastards!!!!!!
_That’ll be €5 for a frozen pastry please. Jam? That’s another €1. The burnt coffee? €5 please. Would you like to tip?_
Fuck off lads.
When times are tough we’re all in this together. But when Cold Play or Taylor Swift is in Croker is €800 for a hotel room because fuck the consumer, what are they gonna do about it?
The hospitality industry had the support of the Irish people during Covid and turned around and gouged us for every penny they could in the years after.
https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2024/0918/1470558-vat-rise-could-lead-to-21-000-food-services-job-losses/
Article on RTE about it now, interesting but not sure I fully believe it’s as bad as that.
I was in a restaurant a few weeks back and all staff were wearing shirts with something like “save your 9%” and all had badges on too with “9%” on them.
Did working in Galway 5 weeks company was paying 220 room a night including breakfast an dinner. How the fuck they wanna have tourists coming with that rip off. Don’t know the deals between government and hotels about refugees and Ukrainians but won’t be suprise that’s current rates 😕
Council tax and water rates are a bigger issue.
Ultimately all should pay the same tax and then let people decide which businesses they want to spend their money in.
If people want to go out – good for them. If they want take away that’s this choice of if they want to cook themselves.
The tax should be the same and then people decide if the extra cost is worth it. It is how all other product work. If they were paying a higher tax and wanted it brought in line then it would be different. But to ask for a subsidy vs other industries is ridiculous.
If the future of your business relies on a 4.5% swing from 13.5% to 9% VAT, your business may not be viable. How can it hope to survive any other knocks.
Reminds me of that tragedy
Is there a fundamental misunderstanding as to what VAT is with Pubs and Cafes? They see it as a cost to them which it’s not. It’s also not like they’re passing this vat change on. Newspapers had the same and they pocketed the vat reduction.
I don’t understand how the VAT rate will affect crippling rents, energy prices, and the cost of supplies.
For those in the industry can you share how significant the 9% VAT rate is? It’s currently at 13.5% right? Will 4.5% really make or break your business?
Most of the sound bite interviews of hospitality reps reference their margins heavily. ‘I’m working on a margin of 3%, 5% etc’. It’s clear that the narrative is ‘we need higher margins to give us headroom’ – which might be true for many smaller operators, but there is no sense that any of this will be passed to the consumer.
They should reduce the rate to 9% for restaurants only, not hotels or bars who are making bank off the back of the Asylum system.
I dont understand all the commentary about passing on savings to the customer. Most of these places (not all) arent making enough profit to be a worthwhile venture. Profit is what the owner has left for themselves or to reinvest to grow their business.
I know a number of independent places who are running such low margins that the ownership are themselves working for minimum wage or less. All credit to all of you moaning about the cost of your pint the one day a week you frequent their business but I dont think someone should be forced to work 50+ hour weeks to sustain a business to provide to others for feck all money instead of getting a job doing something else.. but then we will lament the lack of options and competition and even nice places when all thats left is the big chains who can benefit from economies of scale and shit value.
The profit off a pint in a typical Dublin pub is about .10c to .15c to the publican currently. It may be .50c to make as one commentator suggested but its the likes of Diageo swallowing up that profit, not your local publican. Rates, wages, taxes and the absolute gouging of the massive suppliers in the market makes running a small food/drink business all but unsustainable. Yes prices are too high, yes were being gouged but youre honestly an idiot if you think its the small or local cafes or pubs and not the dominant oligopalistic players in the market and huge chains that are driving it or benefiting from it
We used to joke that lots of business owners would calculate their prices by dividing their desired annual receipts by last year’s total number of units sold, and then they’d despair that sales seemed to be vanishing.
Nah
For all those saying the decrease won’t be passed on to customers, of course it won’t, the reason they are campaigning for this is so they can increase margin without raising prices further. The amount of restaurants/pubs closing down at the moment is shocking. So when everyone mentions greedy business owners, who exactly are they talking about. If pubs and restaurants were all making so much money there wouldn’t be so many closing down.
I saw a comment from a guy on here that said in his pub because of costs, he’s making so little margin that if anything was to happen now that required some expense he would have to just close down.
I understand there are greedy business owners of course, but they are never going to pass this reduction onto the public. The whole reason they want it is to keep open, not make slightly more profit.
That industry can piss off.
6 chips as a portion of chips. €3/4 for small bottles of minerals, ridiculous drink prices, ridiculous food prices, outrageous hotel prices, the slow creep of American tip culture being shoved on to bills. Gouge, gouge, gouge, gouge, gouge, gouge. Fuck your 9%.
Honestly have no sympathy anymore for the hospitality industry. They work their staff to the bone, pay them the minimum they can get away with. Overcharge the consumer, and the majority of services provided are extremely underwhelming and lacking the moneys worth of what was paid.
I used to be an advocate for going away the odd weekend and enjoying a night in a nice hotel. But it’s simply not worth it anymore.
The hospitality industry are saying that they need this to increase profits for them not improve prices for you.
More like 4.5% more in our pocket 
Future of the industry is not charging people €8 for a sandwich
Lower the VAT, cream the FAT – support our profit margins!
I would maybe support lower rates for hospitality if the entire industry was unionised and the extra money went to the people actually working in the thick of it, who usually put up with absolute crap for minimum wage.
“Help us…”
Meanwhile it’s €5 for the smallest Coke bottle they can put on the shelf