Isn't 0.5% very competitive and basically nothing compared to taxes on the transaction?

Here in Poland we have a budding "save cash" movement. And they make some good points about freedom and privacy but are the loudest about the processing fees when mostly it's a way for smaller merchants to avoid paying taxes. Which is fine, I think they should be exempted anyway, but let's not pretend that it's the 0.5% in fees rather than the 30% in taxes.

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samsk 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The difference is that 0.5% on the whole payment, might in some cases be actually much more than taxes on the profit. Or even worse, if you sell for whatever reason without profit, the tansaction fee is your loss.

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blfr 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Standard VAT in Poland is 23% so taxes usually dwarf fees.

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senorrib an hour ago | parent [-]

0.5% gross on a 1% margin business (which is most retail) is egregious.

	▲	javcasas 40 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I would like to know where that 1% retail business is located. My family has a bunch of hardware/electricity retail businesses and the margins are way more than that. Like 30%-500%.

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stefan_ 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

In Poland fees are capped at 0.3% for credit card, 0.2% for debit per EU. Which is why generally in the EU you don't have the insanity with credit card loyalty programs.

	▲	blfr 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Only the interchange is capped. The merchant has to also cover network and processor fees. And then there are some uncapped transaction supposedly so the fee covers this risk. Comes out to 0.6-0.7% for a smaller merchant with the card present.
	▲	kccqzy 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		One person’s insanity is another person’s interesting puzzle and optimization problem.