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Comment by the_third_wave | Hacker News Reader

Could be taxes making up the difference, 20% sounds suspiciously close to the French V.A.T. rate of... 20% [1].

  [1] https://www.vatupdate.com/2021/04/21/vat-rates-in-france/

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There's no VAT on international flights. Other taxes, perhaps, but that 20% difference is not so easily explained.

This was not a payment for a flight but for some extra "service", is there no V.A.T. on that either?

I'm not a tax accountant so I couldn't say for certain. But if this is an additional payment for a seat reservation on an international flight, I would assume it falls into the same category of "international travel", which I believe is zero-VAT across EU. If it was something not directly related to the travel aspect itself, e.g. pre booking an inflight meal or lounge access, I would expect VAT to apply. Or a domestic flight within France, of course.

Perhaps, though I now recall that one of the options was free. I tried that one too, but I abandoned it first in favor of the others since the checkout and "payment" experience failed in strange and unpredictable ways with that one (the others at least showed me a 'sorry this is broken' style of message).

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