Originally Posted by
gdiphil
If something is advertised as "tax free" and it is not sold as such, and charging the VAT, any of it, means it's not tax free, it would be the criminal offence of fraud, see the Fraud Act 2006.
Except that that's the exact opposite of what's actually happening.
Goods sold to passengers bound for non-EU destinations (with the boarding card as the evidence HMRC requires)
are being sold tax-free, in that the retailer doesn't have to hand over one-sixth of the sale price as VAT to the Chancellor. The issue is that the retailer, instead of reducing the sale price accordingly to reflect the fact that there's no VAT element, simply charges the same as the VAT-inclusive price and pockets the 20% as extra profit.
Disingenuous, yes. Illlegal, almost certainly not.