Are stores that offer military discounts compensated by the government?
Company X located outside a military base offer discounts to military as a form of marketing. They want to encourage a group of potential customers to use their store/service. In some cases they are competing with subsidized store on the base. In other cases their only competition is other stores outside the base. The smart ones also understand the pay structure of military pay to make it easier for enlisted to stretch their money for the entire month. The government doesn't offer compensation to the business near bases. The businesses see their offer and discount as advertising expenses, and are figured into the prices they have to charge all customers. You will also see these types of discounts offered by some businesses in college towns. They are competing with the services on the campus and with other off-campus businesses. Some also allow the use of campus dollars to make it easier for the student to spend money. Nope, only base commissaries or BX/PX's are subsidized. The rest is just done for goodwill/marketing purposes. This story is about military grocery stores - i.e.: grocery stores for military personnel on military bases. There are no discounts for military personnel in a regular grocery store. But they may have subsidised prices in grocery stores located inside a military installation, and these are those stores that the story is talking about.
The vendor needs to do this using apportionment, according to the VAT rules for mixed supplies: If you make mixed supplies and the individual supplies are not liable to VAT   at the same rate then you need to work out the tax value of   each supply in order to calculate how much tax is due. If the tax   value is based on the total price you charge (see paragraph 7.3) you   do this by splitting that price between the supplies. This is called   an apportionment ... There is no special method of apportionment ... However, your calculations must be fair and you must be able to justify them. It is usually best to use one of the methods shown in section 32. The section 32 referred to really relates to apportioning use between business and non-business purposes, but it implies that splitting up the total price in proportion to the original prices would probably be fair. So in your example the vendor might split the £5 discount equally between the spoon and the carrycot as they had the same gross cost, and pay VAT as if each had cost £7.50 gross. The vendor could also do it in proportion to their net (pre-VAT) prices and thus apportion a bit more of the discount to the carrycot than the spoon, but as this would lead to them paying slightly more tax overall they probably wouldn't choose to. However, none of this is likely to be too relevant to a consumer, since in the UK prices must be presented as the gross (VAT-inclusive) amounts and so the discounts will also apply to those amounts. It will of course affect how much of the purchase price the vendor ends up paying on to the government and thus might indirectly affect what discounts the vendor is willing to offer. "Yes. ""There is, ...no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person or an organization must accept currency or coins as for payment for goods and/or services."" Taken from the US Department of the Treasury." Some companies offer discounts for shareholders. I believe Disney used to do so, for example; if your family was doing the Disneyland-every-year routine that could be a significant benefit. Yeah, that's the problem fuck-0.  Walmart makes tons of money in profit and their employees are using state benefits.    This isn't a problem for you?  The government is subsidizing walmarts employee benefits.  In other words we are socializing walmarts losses and walmart is privatizing their gains. "Welcome to America!  This country is not meant to be a free ride. I personally  (single, ""native"" male) pay a significant amount each year to Uncle Sam and receive no benefits at all.  Where do ""natives"" sign up for the free stuff?!" I applaud all forms of tax evasion.  Considering that taxation is nesesary for on-going war, it's highly immoral to pay your taxes.  It will only lead to death.  However, it sounds like they're paying lots of taxes.  46 + 11.7 = 57.7%  How is that a loophole?  Sounds like they're getting shellacked. Maybe but would it be ruined if that 10% was merely moved from DoD money to funding local businesses or something?  The downside of defense funding is that even if it provides jobs, it's not self sustainable, whereas if you used that money to fund startups/local businesses, those things could potentially eventually grow or at least not require additional funding.  Then your city would not require outside funding to survive which is even better no? Lots of places in the US do it.  Although the way that they usually phrase it is 'prices reflect a x.x% discount for cash' since most of the credit card companies have an agreement that says you cannot charge a surcharge if someone is using a credit card.  So they get around it by giving a discount for cash.   effect is the same, but it skirts the letter of the agreement Stupid article. People on government assistance typically don't have a great deal of money to begin with, and there aren't exactly many items on Amazon that are at 'dollar store' level prices..and unless one is house-bound level of disabled, you really can't fill a whole grocery list by shopping at Amazon as you could running down to Walmart or Save a Lot. "Wireless capabilities see Nikola tesla every type of communication outside of the walkie talkie really was created without the government. So the fact that i was born here against my own free will automatically gives the government the right to seize the fruits of my labor? This is where this bullshit statist logic falls apart because the only rebuttal you have is ""well just leave then!"" Which is fucking stupid and in pretty sure I already gave you 1 way but I'll say it again cuz it's clear you're incapable of following along, federal sales tax. With federal sales tax there are no deductions or coercion. Also the more money individuals have in their pocket  (disposable income) the more likely they are to spend and grow the economy. That's why you see countries like Sweden with insane tax rates seeing limited growth and in a lot of cases on the verge of an economic collapse. So if people have more disposable income causing them to have more purchasing power a federal sales tax would probably do better than an income tax and the people would receive something tangible instead of just losing 25% of their pay check. Btw don't ever say my income tax pays for roads because they don't that's what a gas tax is for. A majority of our infrastructure is paid for with revenue from other taxes not income. Income taxes pay mostly into military budget and social programs ie social security" So, the point of the article is that the taxpayers are making up for what Walmart isn't paying. But, walmart pays way more than what it's employees are using.  Employees use government programs, Walmartpays more than double of the cost of those programs, so no cost at all is passed to the taxpayers.  Walmart WOULD be evil if they didn't pay taxes. But they do.  The article is nonsense.   We get it. You don't like big business. Sony has been doing this for years and nobody complains. But I do see the point, it keeps companies like WalMart and Best Buy from destroying small businesses.  Ohio does the same thing with beer and cigarrette prices. Most people have no problem paying for schools, millitary, or other socially  optimizing externalities.   People do have a problem with paying for free rides for others, where only the person receiving the benefits gains anything and everyone else has to pay the bill. They are entitled to a benefit for things for survival, This is not a UBI. If they have enough food to be giving it away, the system isn't working properly.  You think because they're (the abusers of the system) are being a useless member of society that they are entitled to have these benefits, which legally they are, but this should not be a long term solution for millions of people, which it is.  Are we talking about a small amount of people, from what google says its a pretty big issue.   We have a military, start your own rant thread about that if you want to talk about that or better yet, go join the military and fix it from the inside out. "I think often times the personality traits that make founders so successful are the same traits that keep them from giving up control. By the time you've made it to the top of the mountain you've proven everyone who ever said ""do this"" wrong. So people saying ""step aside"" isn't going to do anything but convince you that you can prove them wrong again.   It's easy to say ""put your ego to the side"" but when your stubbornness and smarts helped get you where you are, it's not easy to look inside yourself and say ""I'm not the best guy for this."""