Nestlé are evil again

One of the boxes I ticked when I signed up to Oxfam was the "Send me emails about e-campaigning" one - I may not be very good at going out on marches, but I am good at letter writing. Hell, I've even complained to the BBC about some of the stuff on the Today programme! So I got to write to the Danish Prime Minister about European farming subsidies, but up til now, I've not really felt fired up enough about their whole coffee campaign, a tiny bit of capitalist in me saying "Yes, but, it is just supply and demand", although it's never quite that simple. But this morning's email has got me fired up all right. Nestlé are demanding $6m dollars from Ethiopia, a country facing their worst famine for decades.

( The $6m Question: Does Nestlé know it's Christmas?' )

This isn't supply and demand, it's just robbery. Nestlé don't need $6m of Ethiopia's money. Their right to it is highly dubious. Hell, if they had any feelings at all, rather than just being staffed by lawyer and accountant drones they would be donating $6m to Ethiopia to help people there who are starving to death rather than trying to accelerate the process.

Net or gross

This is really bugging me at the moment, because I'm working on finance interfaces and everyone seems to have a different answer. As far as I can tell on the net, I'm right, but I thought I'd see what you lot think.

[Poll #84843]

In this case, the specific tax in question is VAT.

Update: looking through some computer mags in the kitchen while making tea shows that actually, it's so unclear that no-one uses it for VAT - they all say inc VAT or exc VAT.