The tax is levied on the businesses who collect it on behalf of the government, it is a direct function of the amount of the invoice. So if you charge your customer less for your goods or services the tax paid goes down. VAT is short for 'Value Added Tax', in other words that which a business produces. But if your business provides no value then magically you still have to charge VAT, so clearly there is a relationship with turnover.

By your logic you could reason that eventually all tax is paid by consumers because they pay the companies for the products and that includes corporate income tax and so on but whenever sales tax is low you will find that companies are more than happy to absorb the surplus as profits.

VAT is the closest governments get to taxing businesses directly on their revenue streams.

are you making a claim about tax incidence or who literally pays the tax?

No, it would not. Consumers are price sensitive for food, and profit margins are not the same across different types of substitute goods.

It's precisely how Dollar Trees and Dollar Generals have been pushing out grocery stores in the US right now, by not offering fresh produce, meat, or other traditional loss items. Planet Money even has a podcast on it: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/04/26/717665452/epis...

Imagine the grocery store in your area carrying only frozen and canned meat and produce, because that is what it would push.

Uh...

>> and things carry on as normal otherwise

I don't think consumers will agree with you.