20% VAT on masks at Intermarché? Back to a controversial photo

• To facilitate access to protective equipment (masks, gel, etc.) against Covid-19, the VAT rate applied to these products has dropped from 20% to 5.5% since the end of April.
• But some large distributors, such as Intermarché, would continue to apply the 20% rate on batches of masks, according to a sales receipt dated May 4 and widely reported on social networks.
• If the ticket is authentic, the VAT rate mentioned has indeed been applied by mistake on a lot of masks in a group sign, the customer has nevertheless paid the sale price set by Intermarché from a VAT rate at 5.5%.

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And one more. After previous controversies over the sale price of protective masks in an Auchan supermarket in Yonne then in
a Carrefour store in Monaco, it’s now the turn of an Intermarché sales receipt to scandalize internet users.

“Intermarché masks, 20% VAT instead of 5.5%. It begins well !!!! “Takes offense at a viral post on Facebook. We see a receipt dated Monday, May 4, which shows the purchase of a box of 50 masks sold for 29.54 euros. However, the VAT rate is double digits, while protective equipment against the Covid-19 must be sold at a reduced rate since the adoption by Parliament, at the end of April, of an amending finance law.

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Contacted by 20 minutes, the Intermarché brand in question, located in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques, confirms the authenticity of the sales receipt but regrets that the photo shared on social networks misleads internet users: “It has taken on a considerable scale for not much thing. “

“This rate at 20% is due to an error in setting up the VAT on the product sheet, which was quickly corrected since this erroneous classification lasted an hour in total. Above all, the client in question was not injured since, despite the error, the final price corresponds to that fixed by Intermarché for this box of masks with a rate of 5.5% “, specifies the employee to us. origin of this “careless error”.

Also joined by 20 minutes, the Intermarché group confirms to us that they apply “the reduced VAT rate to 5.5% in their points of sale for masks”. And to add: “This sales receipt is an operational error of information from a single point of sale. […] The customer is therefore not injured and it is the owner of the point of sale who will have to pay more VAT. “

Cost-effective masks

Like other large retailers (Carrefour, Leclerc, Auchan, etc.), Intermarché has indeed committed to selling the masks at cost. At the price of 29.54 euros, announced
from April 29 in The Parisian, Which represents, with a VAT rate of 5.5%, 1.54 euro VAT on a price excluding tax (HT) of 28 euro.

However, with a 20% VAT on this price excluding tax, the customer would have had to pay 33.60 euros. If the rate applied was not the correct one, it was applied at a lower net price, and the customer therefore did not pay more for his lot of 50 masks than the price clearly announced by Intermarché on his site, which is 29.54 euros.

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