majoré des taxes

08:22 Mar 21, 2020 

Good morning all,

Thanks for your input and comments. I've decided to go with Tony's answer on this occasion. Just to make things clear, I am a new poster but I am not new to ProZ by any means. I did intentionally choose to restrict answers to native speakers and those specialised or at least working in the field as I have sometimes seen suggestions that do not fit the context and would run the risk of leading less experienced translators astray.

To be perfectly honest, I can't remember whether I restricted the posts/peer comments to paying members. @Writeaway, I have often seen your answers in other discussions, it didn't even occur to me that I might be blocking people who regularly give input. However, please exercise care when venting out your frustrations out on the wrong person. Someone new to this platform could feel daunted and not want to post again. I suggest that you take up your grievances directly with ProZ to see if they can find a solution.

At any rate, have a lovely day and stay safe all of you.
Séverine

07:10 Mar 21, 2020 

Hello Daryo

Yes, "prices" can be defined in specific cases like:
"the quantity of payment or compensation given by one party to another in return for one unit of goods or services. (wiki)
but in everyday English, shops give prices excluding/without or including/with VAT
The question was Commerce>General English and not >Finance>Economic theory

And the same answerer went on to say "prices are increased by taxes" !!! which also sounds strange in everyday English would you not agree?

Regards

00:53 Mar 21, 2020 

prices could be "defined" or "given" (or possibly also something else), depending on the specifics of the text. There IS NOT some unique valid "noun +verb" combination for prices ...

22:20 Mar 20, 2020 

...would be the shorter form possible....if us lowly non-payers were even allowed to participate... :)

08:10 Mar 20, 2020 

Good morning all,
After a good night's sleep and all your very valuable input, things are indeed looking a lot clearer than they were yesterday when I was getting bogged down in my translation!
Yes indeed, an excessive use of "shall" would have been inappropriate, will proofread again now I'm more rested to make sure I'm using the correct tense according to the context I have.
Many thanks once again!

22:47 Mar 19, 2020 

Hello

I too go with Tony M and the agrees there

It's hard at times not to let ourselves be over-influenced (or under-influenced) by the source language but in English:

Prices are not "defined"...they are "given",

and

"without/excluding" tax (not "pre-tax")

and prices are not "increased by taxes" when we speak in particular of VAT. VAT is "added" or "applied".

The future tense is wrong too as this is of course a "routine" so the present simple is indeed best ("Prices are given.... and VAT is applied/added")

I often sleep on stuff like this and in the morning, it becomes much clearer

Regards

18:18 Mar 19, 2020 

Do be very careful trying to use that 'prescriptive' sense of 'shall' — this tends only to really apply when party A is telling party B what they must do.
In this case, that is not the case: party A is simply stipulating what THEY intend to do; in this instance, I think Eliza's alternative suggestion of using a simple future with 'will' is more applicable.
A good test is to imagine the same sentence using 'must (be)' instead of 'shall (be)' — you can then clearly see if it is nonsense or not!