VATupdate Newsletter Week 3 2024

Garbage

Sometimes, you have to clean-up. That can be your desk, your house, your car, your life… Throwing things away can be hard, but it can also give relief.

I moved a lot of times. Every time I had to put everything in boxes, and most of them I would unpack again at the new place. But some boxes I left unpacked. Because I didn’t need the stuff in them at that time, or because I simply did not have enough space. I ended-up moving some boxes to a second or even third place, without them being opened once.

A friend told me that if I hadn’t used the stuff in those boxes, and apparently hadn’t missed it after several years, I should throw them out. In some cases, I did. And in some cases, I now still regret it. For example, with the rise of the CD, I thought that my old vinyl’s would be worthless, and I could listen to the same music, in much better quality, on my CD player. Not just at home, but also in my car and in my Discman. So I threw away all my vinyl records. Man, that was a big mistake.

It’s the same with work. If you get promoted, move to a different department or location, work with a new team, or change your job, you probably spend some time on organising and archiving your files and emails. You may want to hand-over work to someone else, or bring stuff with you, or save important things for later. In the past you may even have burned a CD-ROM with all you files on it. Where’s that CD-ROM now? Do you ever use it? And if not, would you throw it away? It’s difficult to do that, as it contains not just information, but it’s part of what you did and who you are.

It’s the same with VAT. Just like a stray piece of chewinggum stuck to your shoe, VAT attaches itself to the value added at each stage of the production and distribution chain, much like dirt accumulating on your shoes after a walk. But unlike dirt, you can’t just shake off VAT; it’s there, quietly accumulating as goods and services change hands, becoming a part of life’s financial landscape.

It’s a bit like those old items you never want to throw away– you never know when you might need that CD-ROM with your files or when an old vinyl record could be a vintage gem. But even if you do put them away, the knowledge from those files and the music from the records will still be there. Like the VAT that you don’t see but know that it’s all around you.

If you have any comments, questions, or ideas that you want to share with us, please send us an email at [email protected] or leave a comment under the posts of this newsletter on LinkedIn.

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