Supermarkets under pressure to explain high prices

Their profits have doubled or tripled since the pandemic!

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… and so they should be.

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It seems like many, if not most businesses, are taking advantage of the pandemic

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the basic fact is that among all of us, the govt are in place to see exactly who is profiteering and who deserves to be prosecuted for it… name them and shame them.
and of course tax them for it…

But isn’t it the market that sets prices, not the government? If consumers have a choice, and there are many supermarkets, then supermarkets can charge what they like, and if people still buy the produce then by definition its not overcharging. So why would a business that is just making a bit more money be punished by the government for that?

yes Alan, your right, but my point is not who sets the prices, but who pockets the inflated profits
the govts in need of a few bob to boost the NHS and the schools, so i hope they fill their boots [tax-wise]

Personally I think there are many badly regulated & badly run markets - water, energy, trains. I can see the case for addressing these markets. Similarly when oil companies made billions as a direct result of the war in the Ukraine there is a case for a windfall tax. I’m just less convinced by penalties or additional taxes for companies that are simply charging what people will pay in a competitive market. I’d have thought that the few bob needed for so many things should surely come from core taxation, not from occasional add on taxes. Perhaps a wealth tax.

About bluddy time,and not just supermarkets either as strathmore has pointed out.