TVA and Robin Hood 2, July 2009

Since a friend commented on it, I thought I’d write about my experiences with the lowering of the tax (TVA) on food in restaurants. Yesterday, July 1st, it went from 19.6% to 5.5%, in order to encourage more French to go out to eat.
Maybe it’s the socialist in me, but I was OK with the tax being at 19.6% for those who could afford to eat out. It’s a little bit of Robin Hood…taking from those who have it and giving it to those who need it. France is well known for its national health care, its unemployment payments, etc, which come from taxes.
Enough of the commentary on social policy.
Back to the food tax.
So yesterday, the first day the tax was supposed to be lowered, we had a coffee in a cafe near the Musee d’Orsay. Was the tax lowered? NO!!!
On the receipts in France, you get a grand total of what you have to pay. The tax is already included in this price…it is not added afterwards, like it is chez nous. So, our total was 5 euros for 2 coffees, and below the total it shows us that 19.6% of this total covres the tax.
I think that, near tourist destinations like the Musee d’Orsay, they expect that tourists don’t know what’s going on in French politics. But I had listened to the news the night before! I knew it was coming! However, I didn’t say anything.  But I knew that this place would be pocketing the 14% difference in price.

Then last night, we went out for dinner with a French friend of mine, Sonia. We went to a restaurant and sat down, and the server brought us our menus. Sonia asked the server why the prices  on the menu hadn’t been lowered, as the tax had been lowered. Our server replied (in French) “Uhh…I don’t know…I’m not sure…was the tax supposed to be lowered today? I don’t know when or why that’s supposed to happen”. Sonia looked at him, and told us she was going to go home and read the new law. THEN, this waiter went to his boss, and started whispering that he had pretended not to know anything about the lowering of the tax. Sonia heard him. At this point, we stood up and left this restaurant.
We found a different restaurant, where the new, lower prices were advertised outside.
We happily sat down here and ate our dinner. Sonia again asked the servers some questions about the tax, and we found out that not all products were required to lower their taxes (for example, the wine we drank was still taxed at 19.6%), but that most products had had their tax lowered.
We ate our lower-priced dinner (by the way…during the summertime in Paris, it stays light out until about 10:30 pm!) and took the metro home.
And I had a mini lesson in French politics and attitudes.