Final Post- VAT tax and Middleton Very Rare

Middleton Very Rare

We are at the airport and it’s incredible that our time in Ireland is already finished !   As we went through the Duty Free s

hops, I remembered that one of my friends, Jean Thomas,  told me I should not come home from Ireland without a bottle of Middleton Very Rare. After all, it is made by the Jameson Distillery.    The Duty Free had tastings of several options, but the cashier had to find a supervisor  to get a key to the Middleton. He went to quite a bit of trouble, but  I couldn’t pay that much without tasting it.   It was fabulous as advertised, but we realized that we would have to put it in our regular suitcases when we went through security in New York.   We were discussing the dilemma when the cashier looked at us incredulously and said in his classic Irish brogue, “what?    Ss note a problem.  Trow de close and keep the wiskee.  

Well alrighty then !

VAT tax confusion

ctually, VAT tax is redundant, because VAT stands for Value Added Tax. The best information I have found about the VAT tax is by Patricia Preston on her Q and A forum. http://www.irelandexpert.com/abcs_vat_7-16-99.htm I just have a few points to add to her already thorough explanation. The European Value Added Tax is basically a sales tax. However, the refund for visiting tourists has been contracted out to private companies. Pat mentions these and their advantages and disadvantages. However, at any given store, they will probably have a form from only one of the two or three main companies. You don’t have a choice. So we just tried to collect as many refund forms we could (when we remembered). When you get to the airport, you go through security and in the area with the Duty Free shops, you have to hunt down the offices of the companies that match the company name on the forms you collected. Some give you cash. Some refund your credit card. It is still quite confusing.