Bookmarklet to add VAT (sales tax) to web prices

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jane D
  • Start date Start date
J

Jane D

I have become more and more pleased with what bookmarklets can do for me on
my opera browser.

Just to really make me really happy I would love to find a bookmarklet which
automatically added VAT (very similar to sales tax in the US) to a price
shown on a web page.

It could work it one of two ways:

(1) Maybe the bookmarklet would need the user to highlight the price and
then when the bookmarklet was actioned, it would popup a new price inclusive
of VAT (at 17.5% for the UK).

(2) Or alternatively maybe the boomarklet would locate all the currency
entries on a page and somehow (how?) show them with the tax applied. I have
seen bookmarklets which can scan a web page: for exmaple those which
highlight every occurence on a aweb page of a particular word. Maybe the
same sort of thing can be done for figures on a web page.

Do either of these bookmarklets already exist?

A poor third way might be to have a popup box into which the price is
entered and the bookmarkelt already knows the mutliplier to add VAT (sales
tax) so you just have to press enter.

I suspect it must be a common enough need to re-calculate prices when they
are shown exclusive of VAT (or sales tax).

Jane


[Please excuse the crossposting. I have kept to relevant groups.]
 
I have become more and more pleased with what bookmarklets can
The ASA states that web sites must display vat-inclusive prices
by law. I successfully got them to force Expansys to correct
their pages a few years ago.
Click to expand...


Well done!

OTPH do sites selling largely to the trade need to show VAT?

Take Misco for example. http://www.misco.co.uk/ They are linked to Simply
but I get much better customer service at Misco and I can open an account
with them through my small company. However my company is too small to be
able to claim back VAT.

They are trade only and they do display prices with VAT. Are they allowed
to do that from what you say?
 
_Jane D_, venerdì 17/set/2004:
I have become more and more pleased with what bookmarklets can do for me on
my opera browser.

Just to really make me really happy I would love to find a bookmarklet which
automatically added VAT (very similar to sales tax in the US) to a price
shown on a web page.

It could work it one of two ways:

(1) Maybe the bookmarklet would need the user to highlight the price and
then when the bookmarklet was actioned, it would popup a new price inclusive
of VAT (at 17.5% for the UK).
Click to expand...
[...]

Hi Jane,
I've made for you a bookmarklet of the (1) kind.
It is at the bottom of this page, called vatIncl:

http://fido.altervista.org/bm/bookmarklets.php

I've tested it on FireFox, then let me know if it works on Opera too, so I
can add its icon. For sure it doesn't work on Internet Explorer, I still
have to look into it.

Last note: you in UK are lucky, we in Italy have IVA (our VAT) at 20%!

Ciao,

X'Posted to: opera.general,alt.comp.freeware,uk.comp.vendors,uk.comp.homebuilt
 
_Jane D_, venerdì 17/set/2004:
I have become more and more pleased with what bookmarklets can
do for me on my opera browser.

Just to really make me really happy I would love to find a
bookmarklet which automatically added VAT (very similar to
sales tax in the US) to a price shown on a web page.

It could work it one of two ways:

(1) Maybe the bookmarklet would need the user to highlight
the price and then when the bookmarklet was actioned, it would
popup a new price inclusive of VAT (at 17.5% for the UK).
[...]
Click to expand...
Click to expand...


MLC said:
Hi Jane,
I've made for you a bookmarklet of the (1) kind.
It is at the bottom of this page, called vatIncl:

http://fido.altervista.org/bm/bookmarklets.php

I've tested it on FireFox, then let me know if it works on
Opera too, so I can add its icon. For sure it doesn't work on
Internet Explorer, I still have to look into it.
Click to expand...


Your bookmarklet works just fine on my Opera 7.5. Thank you very much for
making such a bookmarklet.

Can I politely suggest two small improvements?

ONE is to round the output number to 2 decimal places. There must be little
demand for any greater accuracy than that.

TWO is harder. When I select a price on a webpage for your bookmarklet then
I find it easiest to double click the price. This usually means that the
currency symbol before the digits also gets selected with the following
number.

Would it be possible to have your bookmarklet ignore the leading character
if it was non-numeric? (If you wanted to be really very clever then you
could reinsert the currency symbol to precede the output number!)
Last note: you in UK are lucky, we in Italy have IVA (our VAT)
at 20%!
Click to expand...

We are lucky that we pay more but at least you can calculate the IVA more
easily in your head! :-)
 
_Jane D_, sabato 18/set/2004:
Your bookmarklet works just fine on my Opera 7.5. Thank you very much for
making such a bookmarklet.
Click to expand...

You're welcome :-)
Can I politely suggest two small improvements?

ONE is to round the output number to 2 decimal places. There must be little
demand for any greater accuracy than that.
Click to expand...

You're right. Done.
TWO is harder. When I select a price on a webpage for your bookmarklet then
I find it easiest to double click the price. This usually means that the
currency symbol before the digits also gets selected with the following
number.

Would it be possible to have your bookmarklet ignore the leading character
if it was non-numeric? (If you wanted to be really very clever then you
could reinsert the currency symbol to precede the output number!)
Click to expand...

I've done also this, including though only £ and $ currency symbols, to keep
it simple. I hope it works as you need.

The link is always
http://fido.altervista.org/bm/bookmarklets.php
last bookmarklet of the page.
We are lucky that we pay more but at least you can calculate the IVA more
easily in your head! :-)
Click to expand...

Well, it isn't always true because for convenience goods it is at 19% :-/

Ciao,

X'Posted to: opera.general,alt.comp.freeware,uk.comp.vendors,uk.comp.homebuilt
 
_Jane D_, sabato 18/set/2004:

MLC said:
I've done also this, including though only £ and $ currency
symbols, to keep it simple. I hope it works as you need.

The link is always
http://fido.altervista.org/bm/bookmarklets.php
last bookmarklet of the page.
Click to expand...

This works nicely. :-) I even went to a page with very unusual decimal
points http://www.snapshotpress.co.uk/orderonline_gbp.htm
and it worked there too! I have no idea what character the author used but
your routine deals with it.

HOWEVER ... one thing is overlooked and that is when the price is over £1000
and the web page shows this as £1,000 using a comma as a delimiter for
thousands.

For example on http://www.saddler.co.uk/classified/pages/horsebox.htm at the
bottom of the first screen it says:

Price: £3,600 ono

When I use your new 'vatincl' bookmarklet then the bookmarklet assumes that
the £3,600 is actually £3.600! (Very ironically, I know that in many
European countries this is exactly how thousands are delimited.) The answer
your bookmarklet gives is £3.53 which is not right.

Is there a way to ignore the commas on the number you read from the web
page?
 
_Jane D_, domenica 19/set/2004:
This works nicely. :-) I even went to a page with very unusual decimal
points http://www.snapshotpress.co.uk/orderonline_gbp.htm
and it worked there too! I have no idea what character the author used but
your routine deals with it.
Click to expand...

I have no idea either! The merit goes all to JavaScript language :-)
HOWEVER ... one thing is overlooked and that is when the price is over £1000
and the web page shows this as £1,000 using a comma as a delimiter for
thousands.

For example on http://www.saddler.co.uk/classified/pages/horsebox.htm at the
bottom of the first screen it says:

Price: £3,600 ono

When I use your new 'vatincl' bookmarklet then the bookmarklet assumes that
the £3,600 is actually £3.600! (Very ironically, I know that in many
European countries this is exactly how thousands are delimited.) The answer
your bookmarklet gives is £3.53 which is not right.

Is there a way to ignore the commas on the number you read from the web
page?
Click to expand...

I think so. Check that my web page :)
However I hope you don't mind if the result is not formatted, e.g. it is
without commas or points.
I've also added the euro symbol to the possible currencies, you never know
the UK will join... ;-)
At the moment in the result there is no space between the currency symbol
and the number. If you like better a space, let me know.


X'Posted to: opera.general,alt.comp.freeware,uk.comp.vendors,uk.comp.homebuilt
 
Back
Top