Tuesday, January 04, 2011

VAT rise effects – 5p on my cup of tea

Photo of cup of tea by chumsdock from Flickr

So the price of a cup of tea went up in our canteen this morning, a hike from 55p to 60p. Coffee drinkers will have noticed a rise too.

The VAT increase from 17.5% to 20% should only have added a penny or so to the price of a cup of tea. The above-VAT increase is partially justified by not increasing the price of most of the other items on sale in the canteen. However, it’s bad news if all you ever eat is tea and a scone. And I don’t remember the VAT reduction (when it went down from 17.5% to 15%) being passed on to canteen users in the same way.

The broader question is … has the price of your regular cup of tea or coffee increased today?

Drop a comment and let me know the price, how much it’s gone up by, and where you get it and I’ll post a summary in a day or so.

(Photo used under licence from chumsdock on Flickr.)

5 comments:

Niall said...

Time to bring in your own PG Tips / Punjana / whatever and fill up the cup on the way down to the canteen :)

Alan in Belfast (Alan Meban) said...

And do a deal with the tea club over milk.

Alan said...

I think cafe owners have a difficult time. They have had to deal with rising purchase costs of their own due to inflation, and also now this VAT rise. So, to deal with both I'd imagine they will increase prices by more than a couple of percent all at once. Otherwise they would have to increase prices at two separate points in the year.

So, although I don't like price increases myself, there is so much goign on in the economy that I can understand it happening.

Alan in Belfast (Alan Meban) said...

Found the notice explaining the increase that referred to the 16% rise in raw coffee price long before mentioning VAT ... but the price of a tup of cea went up at least twice last year.

Norwin! said...

On a related note, I noticed before Christmas that the coke in the machine was 2p cheaper than the coke from the canteen. I guess that reflects the cost of a person on the till!