Supermarket Scam or Govt levy?

hairymolly

Some months back my local supermarket stopped suppling the clear plastic bags at checkout, generally used to wrap meat packages in case of leakage onto other foodstuff, detergents, firelighters...When i asked, the checkout assistant said there was a government levy on those bags?! yet they dont supply them anymore. Just wondering is this a new levy? or is just the overpriced supermarkets way of cutting costs?

gerryo

hairymolly wrote: »

Some months back my local supermarket stopped suppling the clear plastic bags at checkout, generally used to wrap meat packages in case of leakage onto other foodstuff, detergents, firelighters...When i asked, the checkout assistant said there was a government levy on those bags?! yet they dont supply them anymore. Just wondering is this a new levy? or is just the overpriced supermarkets way of cutting costs?

There is no levy on the small clear bags used to wrap foods.
Guess they don't really understand the regs, have become mean or have just run out & are fobbing you off. They are probably just trying to save a few €.

Do they still supply clear bags to wrap vegetables?

Ste.phen

gerryo wrote: »

There is no levy on the small clear bags used to wrap foods.

Only where the bag in question is the only thing wrapped around the foodstuff.
Bag of chicken from the butcher's counter = free.
Another bag to put that inside = 22c.

In particular, people were using these little clear bags to put washing powder, etc in, which was clearly against the regulations. Perhaps the Government cracked down on supermarkets not properly implementing the rules.

The cynic in me says that the original levy was too successful, and now nobody uses bags except lazy/stupid people and they need to clampdown to keep the revenue up

Do they still supply clear bags to wrap vegetables?

In my experience, yes.

Archeron

I've noticed that my local supervalu has a sign up outlining exactly what is covered and what isnt. As far as I can tell, a bag used for meat/veg/fish etc is free as its used to actually wrap the food, but if its just a bag to protect or carry something, then its chargeable. What I found funny is that the bags you sometimes used to get with special offers (e.g. put three cartons of juice in a bag with a token on it and get one of the cartons free) are actually chargeable too. But you can just carry the goods to the till and then give it back and not pay. I guess thats why you dont see those type of offers any more.
Funnily enough, it does state that a bag to put firelighters in is most definitely chargeable.

hairymolly

My point is the cashiers used to put clear plastic around firelithters, washing powder, and prepacked meats. So why stop so suddenly? By the way igy I dont get your point about lazy/stupid people?!!!

JohnC.

hairymolly wrote: »

My point is the cashiers used to put clear plastic around firelithters, washing powder, and prepacked meats. So why stop so suddenly? By the way igy I dont get your point about lazy/stupid people?!!!

They used to, but they weren't supposed to. I think most people simply didn't know about what was or wasn't exempt when it came to small bags. Everyone just thought it was the carrier bags and bigger that had the levy.

This will show you what exactly is exempt.

Ian Beale

hairymolly wrote: »

My point is the cashiers used to put clear plastic around firelithters, washing powder, and prepacked meats. So why stop so suddenly? By the way igy I dont get your point about lazy/stupid people?!!!

Putting the levy aside I think everyones forgetting the actual cost of those small bags they aren't cheap and if your supplying them in a large supermarket those costs rise very quickly.

Also paying for the levy doesn't pay for the full cost of the bag the levy was added on to the cost of purchasing them for the retailer and the retailer is meant to pass that on but does not have too ie pay the cost themselves and not charge customers.

ScouseMouse

If something is wrapped i.e. washing powder, can of beans, bottle of coke etc, then you have to pay to have it in a bag. If something is unwrapped i.e. an apple, a fresh bread roll, an orange, loose steaks etc etc, then they can be put into the small clear bags without a levy.

The revenue are going around checking on this and clamping down hard. That is why the shops are doing this.

p.s. I own a shop.

Absolam

Ian Beale wrote: »

Putting the levy aside I think everyones forgetting the actual cost of those small bags they aren't cheap and if your supplying them in a large supermarket those costs rise very quickly.

Also paying for the levy doesn't pay for the full cost of the bag the levy was added on to the cost of purchasing them for the retailer and the retailer is meant to pass that on but does not have too ie pay the cost themselves and not charge customers.

The levy doesn't pay any of the cost of the bag.. it's a tax! It wasn't added onto the cost of purchasing bags for retailers.. retailers are required to levy the tax on any bag they give/sell to a customer, and submit all of the levy to the government. Retailers are specifically not permitted to pay the cost themselves.. it must be passed onto the consumer.

ztoical

Absolam wrote: »

The levy doesn't pay any of the cost of the bag.. it's a tax! It wasn't added onto the cost of purchasing bags for retailers.. retailers are required to levy the tax on any bag they give/sell to a customer, and submit all of the levy to the government. Retailers are specifically not permitted to pay the cost themselves.. it must be passed onto the consumer.

+ 1 beat me to it. Use to drive me mad when I worked retail people yelling at me over the levy and trying to explain to them it was a TAX not a shop charge.

The shop I worked for [which was a book shop] had issues with running out of large paper bags cus people would take them off the top of the till area regardless of the size of book they'd bought [we had three different sizes of bags but people always took the largest one]. The manager moved all the bags under the till and told us not to give a bag unless someone asked for it, I'd say the supermarkets have done the same thing - I've seen people taking those small bags and using them as carrier bags so the shop most likely removed them from the till area - you still have the small plastic bags around the fruit and veg section, bread, and the meat/deli section

Noelie

superscouse wrote: »

If something is wrapped i.e. washing powder, can of beans, bottle of coke etc, then you have to pay to have it in a bag. If something is unwrapped i.e. an apple, a fresh bread roll, an orange, loose steaks etc etc, then they can be put into the small clear bags without a levy.

The revenue are going around checking on this and clamping down hard. That is why the shops are doing this.

p.s. I own a shop.

Also any frozen food can have a free bag as long as there is only frozen food put into the bag.

Toto Wolfcastle

I worked in M&S and we had so many people trying to use the small plastic bags for things other than fruit/veg etc that they now have signs up next to the bags to tell people that they cost 22 cent.

People tend to get very angry about it and don't seem to understand that it is a government levy.

I think a lot of places also didn't realise that they were supposed to charge for the small plastic bags for a good while and weren't charging but most have copped on now.

JohnC.

Noelie wrote: »

Also any frozen food can have a free bag as long as there is only frozen food put into the bag.

The only frozen product exempt is ice.

Noelie

Kahless wrote: »

The only frozen product exempt is ice.

I stand corrected