Get ready to roll! Roll back VAT to 15%

The turn of the year is usually the time, when many of us look to new opportunities, new starts, new resolutions and unfortunately, new debts.

These are unfortunate times in some respects but in other respects, offer bountiful opportunities for bargains. Business is tight so discounts are a permanent high street feature, rather than the “one off” rush, normally witnessed at the January sales.

A couple of things have crept stealth like upon us, though. Currency exchange rates and VAT increasing to 17.5% from the reduced level of 15%. We all got used to it, didn’t we?

For a “big ticket” purchase, 2.5% represents a lot of money! Couple that with a foreign holiday and the increased cost, in real terms and it hurts.
Rubicon Developments are involved in the “Home Improvement” industry, through their installation division and also associated retailers and suppliers, such as “Katherine Cavendish Fitted Interiors”, “Bauformat”, “Burger”, “Lechner”, “Siemens”, “Gorenje” to name but a few. The overseas manufacturing element of this impacts further on the back of a weak sterling. “Big Ticket” purchases are the life-blood of this division.

So what do we do? We plan. We forward buy goods and currency, enabling our retail divisions to effectively hold VAT to our customers at 15%, whilst still offering sale discounts of up to 20%.

It’s not easy but as always, innovation is the vehicle, planning is the fuel and training enables us to turn the ignition. Let’s get ready to roll!

Peter Saunders
Director