Hewlett Packard cashback (OT in uk.d-i-y)

It would be fraud if they changed the invoice so that it no longer matched the printer. If they replaced the printer, at the same time, it

would probably be OK.

However, the original sale might have been fraudulent if they had claimed that it qualified for the cash back.

That would be tax fraud. If such practices are common, I would expect HMRC to request details of the payees!

Do keep up. It was a microserver!

They refunded me for the first server and re-invoiced me for the second.

They did - but that was due to circumstances unknown to them. They took immediate (with 3 hours, anyway) action to put it right, at their expense.

No - that's a breakaway subthread

"HP currently have cashback offers on some of their laptops" is specifically what I was referring to

(yes, I also bought a couple of proliant uservers with the cashback deal).

Cashback relies on almost no one getting it. Otherwise, there's no point - it's just additional paperwork cost for everyone.

Depends. Mobile phone cashback is like that - submit your claim every 5th Tuesday of the month, full moons excepted. But IT cashback is often used to shift excess inventory without pulling down the numbers. The laptops which were officially £500 but they have so many of the wretched things sitting around the warehouse they offer a cashback deal to get shot of them (cough, might I mention Windows 8 here). That's a sales promotion, it doesn't upset the accounts in other ways.

What I don't understand though is how they managed to do things like the Microservers, which have been on cashback for years now. Either they're really cheap to make or they're subsidising to break into a new market, because it's clearly not excess inventory. And the small businesses they're aimed at are probably going to be better at filing the cashback returns than large ones.

Theo

The last microserver promotion was in the few months before that model went EOL. The new ones don't have cashback - yet.

But I agree....they are probably really cheap to make! Well made though...

This one -

- has been on for a couple or three weeks.

Missed that one! Still, only £50 - and more to start with.

Now £179.99 after cashback has been increased to £100:

I wonder if HMRC are looking at taxing these cash-back deals, why wouldn't they after screwing the return of trail commision?

In the case where the company pays, but the employee gets the cash back, I assume that they are already taxable as income.

Where the person who pays gets the cash back, I would hope that the giver of the cash back receives a refund of the VAT. However, if that is not the case, there would be yet another source of revenue for the government.