In 2020 the German government lowered VAT in a reaction to covid from 19% to 16%.
On the first day Amazon had reduced thousands of products by exactly 19% and only increased by 16% after a few hours. AFAIK they did honor every sale during that time.
I can totally see that happening. Who develops systems with short term VAT changes in mind?
Aldi iirc just kept the old prices and simply gave a 3% discount at checkout
I get your point, but they probably gave a discount of 1-(1.16/1.19) =~ 2.5%
Probably also rounded down in favor for the customer but I can’t remember the details
I suppose it's the same codebase as any other country's amazon, and there's a different VAT rate in every country.
So it's unlikely their German prices would just take the same input as eg Dutch prices and changed the VAT around.
And apparently fixed book prices (printed on the back) were up to every single publisher to decide about
Then you also have different VAT rules depending on the product category. Food is 7% in Germany.
Lastly I also remember that Amazon gift cards were weird for a few hours. Something like you pay 48.50 and got 50€ worth of credit. I can’t remember if you could then use that credit to buy new gift cards.
Lots of ways where this becomes quite a complex problem real fast
Uber also sold UK journeys to UK customers but put the fare calculation taximeter in a server in another country to avoid the 20% VAT. I believe they actually won that case as in the EU, VAT is calculated by the seller using their country's laws regardless of the buyer's country's VAT rates and laws.
VAT law is harmonized across the EU, which country's rate is applicable is based on a rather complex (and ever changing) set of rules, but nowadays it's mostly the buyer's country.