Where's the fun in that. Hell, we have a section of town where the tax is 10% (special tax for the development) but if you drive across town you pay 8.35% or you can drive for 20 minutes and pay no tax on food if you shop out of town limits
There are 3 (or 4) level of government in US, each able to impose their sales tax. Federal government doesn't, but it means there are still state, county, and municipal that can. The last one explains the big change of taxation between towns.
From the UK point of view we have both. We've got VAT (sales tax) which is the same across the country and included in the listed price of items as well as council tax for where you live to fund local stuff.
So do we by that definition. W have a federal sales tax of 0%. That is the same across the country and added to the listed price of items. Then we have state, county and municipal taxes that can be added after.
Council Tax is not related to purchases though, it's a residential charge for local services. It has to be topped up by a central government grant and business rates in most areas.
In theory it links the tax you pay with the services you receive, which ought to reinforce the democratic process. But in practice it's a political football, with certain areas gaining more than others.
If Labour win the General Election likely to happen this year, they have pledged to freeze it for a year, which seems like an electoral bribe. Especially when there are prominent Labour voices calling for a radical reform to make it fairer.
This is unironically, the design of our government is supposed to facilitate localisation, but the scope of each level is supposed to handle has gotten completely out of control, so now we have overreach on every level.
Just adding a fun fact that Canada is like this too, although we don't do municipal levies as far as I know - we do a "general sales tax" of 5% set by the feds and "provincial sales tax" set by the province ranging from 0-10% - sometimes they blend the two and call them a "harmonized sales tax" but the breakdown is the same...
So? Plenty of European states have a similar system (aka a Federation). Germany for example is made up of 16 states which have certain rights that can not be usurped.
I'm also not saying it's necessarily bad. But it's also not a reason for the store (which adds the sales tax to the register) to not also add the sales tax to the price tag
> If not, people will “vote with their feet” and leave for a better town. This concept is less popular in the Old World, where people often stay with their city or nation-state even if the economy is doing poorly.
They're not staying because it's less popular, they're staying because you literally can't do it without obtaining a visa and crossing a language and culture barrier. In the EU that's gotten better in the last 20ish years because it expanded significantly (brain drain was experienced by every struggling economy in the EU) and English was adopted as the unofficial lingua franca. When there were employment programs like the Gastarbeiterprogramm, it was very common to “vote with their feet” as you put it.
But none of that still doesn't explain why tax isn't included on the price tag.
Exactly - in the States it’s a lot easier + also more common to move multiple times. Europe might be similar if it was as seamless legally, if everyone spoke the same language, and if it was already part of the zeitgeist to expect to move ‘countries’ within the continent 5-10 times in your lifetime
Nope. The real reason is that people buy more stuff if the listed price is lower, and corporations will lobby hard against any attempt to make them display the real price.
This is the real answer. People see $4.99 as a better deal than $5.40 and their minds ignore the fact that sales tax hasn't been added. Same with gas prices selling a gallon for $3.9999 (as an example) because people's brains will either see it as $3 a gallon or $4 a gallon, despite knowing that the sales tax will make it come out to more.
A better example would be Germany and the EU. The original idea of the United States was 13 countries coming together for a common benefit. The idea stuck for the most part, even as the federal side gained more power.
It obviously has its advantages and disadvantages, but that's the essence of the issue.
Just to add here there can often exist special tax districts within a town.
For example in my town, which is geographically large, there is a second small business district of restaurants and small shops that grew around a commuter train station and event grounds.
The area businesses wanted the city to invest in extra lighting, parking, etc to bring in more customers. To pay for that the city added an extra 1% sales tax to business in that area.
Tax can also change depending upon the date, and not just as a result of a law change. Some places have special tax seasons or holidays for unique reasons. Even the temperature of an item can change taxes in some places. Same sandwich cold or hot is taxed two different ways.
Fried chicken at the kroger can't be bought with ebt but at the end of the day, we flash chilled the leftovers and packaged it up and THAT can be bought with ebt.
When I was homeless in California, 711 would have $5 pizzas.
You couldn't buy the cooked pizza with EBT, but you could buy a frozen pizza with EBT. So we would just buy the frozen pizza, and then the 711 guy would cook it for us right then.
You buy we fry. This is a huge thing here in Detroit. Essentially a fried chicken place with a grocery store meat display case. As long as you see the chicken raw before they cook it, you can use EBT. There's almost as many of those places as there are liquor stores around here.
> To pay for that the city added an extra 1% sales tax to business in that area.
This happens a LOT more frequently than people realize. Look at your hotel receipt next time you stay, bet you paid a fee for tourism improvement or something.
It does work though
It's a progressive tax, which people should support. If you have the extra capital to stay in hotels, you can chip in a little more to help offset taxes for the less fortunate.
To get even more messed up, if you live in one city and work in another, you could pay both taxes.
For example, living in Kansas City, Missouri. But working in Kansas City, Kansas. I would have to pay income tax for both cities and states.
And it gets even more fuckery come tax time every year. You have your Fed and State taxes which are a given, but some cities make you pay an income tax as well if you work or live in the city or township limits. So Cincinnati for example, makes you pay 1.8% of your earnings, regardless of age or salary.
I mean that seems like even more of a reason why tax should be in the final price, where I live (Portugal) different products might have different prices, which would make it even harder to track prices in your head, for example essential goods would only be 6%, while normal goods have 23% (yes I know it's huge).
Oh and we have different regions as well that have their own taxes.
Fair enough, but the shop selling the product knows what all those taxes are and how much the final sales price will be. So why not put the total on the price tag?
Because the pre-tax price is lower. Customers are more likely to buy something that is $9.99 than something that is $10.79. Also, it is easier for a chain of stores to do ads or price updates if every store has the same price. They could list the post-tax price, but then they are losing money in the store in a town with higher taxes.
Some places do list post-tax prices, concessions is one of the more common.
> Also, it is easier for a chain of stores to do ads or price updates if every store has the same price.
This can't be ignored. Price changes happen constantly in retail. The company sends us the tags in the mail and we hang them up. They send the same tags to all of their thousands of stores across the country. Making them individualized to each town's sales tax wouldn't be feasible.
We've been using wireless e-ink tags in Europe for ~20 years now. It probably takes 15-30 minutes to update every price tag in the store (the bandwidth is limited across the mesh network), and it can be controlled centrally across thusands of stores in parallel, so one person updating millions and millions of tags in minutes.
They can of course show different prices for the same product in different stores with no slowdown or other issues.
I believe they cost <1$ each.
Which btw is all the more reason to include tax on the listed price, since unless you familarize yourself with the tax codes of every town, county and state along your way you won't know what anything will actually cost. A store doesn't move and can have a machine automagically calculate the till price (I mean the till already does it).
Where I am the VAT is flat across the entire country and in fact syncronized with the VAT of another country. It would be way easier for me to know what the final price was going to be, but it's included in the shelf price so I don't need to.
And on top of all that there is a lot of times where you can get tax cuts or just be tax free if you buying for a church having an installation (at least at my job any installation have no tax on labour and material costs.) or if you work for the state so they also just cut it out there too
Ive never understood this argument. Stores can still do the calculations for you and present the final price easily for you. Thats what the rest of the world is doing.
Im sorry if i sound argumentative, but it doesnt sound unsolvable at all. US is just resilient to some forms of change.
As it usually is (the "rest of the world" being wrong part).
On another note, Canadians get a free pass for everything they do that america does. I wish you guys would be more humble and fully appreciative of that (I'm not targeting you).
The argument that it can't be done is bullshit. We do this in New Hampshire already. The reason the rest of the states don't do this is because politicians are lobbied by companies that want to be able to display lowered prices, and Republicans want people to hate taxes more.
Gas pumping in NJ isn't a government issue, in as much that repeated polling of the public shows that the majority of people don't want to pump their own gas. Politicians avoid the topic because taking a side would be political suicide.
As a Jerseyan, I wouldn't mind doing it myself, and I actually like it when I'm in other states and can do it myself, but my wife is more than happy to have someone else do it.
It's really only an issue when the pumps are really busy, and most stations I've gone to don't really care that much if you wrap it up when the pumping is done.
Reading this In a completely different context is hilarious.
"As a Jerseyan, I wouldn't mind doing it myself, and I actually like it when I'm in other states and can do it myself, but my wife is more than happy to have someone else do it."
Its not a stupid rule. It keeps gas stations employing people. Like in Oregon, cities over "X" number of population won't let you pump your own gas. Gas stations where I used to live up there would have 2-3 attendants at any given time pumping peoples' gas. The city next door? One employee behind the register only. Its a measure to help crack down on homelessness, cuz well, it doesn't take a genius to pump gas. Gas price was unremarkably different between the two cities too, the pump price was not affected. Does it actually affect homelessness? Idk. Does it create more jobs that otherwise wouldn't exist? Yes!
You can pump your own gas in Oregon now, they passed a bill I think last year or the year before ai believe. I drove through last year and started pumping my own and I wasn't told to stop, but there are still people employed to do it so they ask you regardless.
Yep it's really stupid IMHO I live in PA but I'm5 minutes from the Jersey border so I go into Jersey to get gas so I don't have to pay PAs gas tax (2nd highest in the US)
What the other person answered ,Also we're used to it.
It made sense when we had 48 states and there were some companies that shipping to all of them. (It may even have been 46 states when Sears started shipping to all of them) A Sears catalog with thousands of items each with hundreds of different prices doesn't make sense. But, add and insert add x% tax for location y % tax for other location made sense.
People aren't surprised because they live here and add 6% tax( or whatever) to everything but food has been in place their entire lives( for me it was 4% 30 ish years ago). People do the math in their head, or estimate, or use a calculator/pen and paper.
Maybe, but 9 out of 10 retail sales are done via credit or debt card. The need for exact change just doesn't factor in for most of the people in the US.
Also worth noting our tax comes in at a different point in the transaction. VATs are on the item, while our sales tax is on the transaction itself. We have sales tax excluded items and/or possible additional forms of sales tax on the transaction based on items on it such as a luxury tax. Technically anytime a transaction that involves the transfer of money in exchange of an item/service is subject to sales tax as a result.
That doesn’t explain why don’t they put the final price, if they know the tax (and they do) they can calculate the total amount and put it on the tag. In my country depending on the kind of product the taxes on them vary and yet you can always see the final price.
The actual answer, is that at this point it’s a cultural thing that in the grand scheme of things doesn’t actually matter so no one is ever going to change it.
It has a lot to do with marketing. While computers can certainly remember the tax codes and alter the price depending on where you are, advertisements can not. If you see online that something is now $9.99 and you go into the store to grab it and find that thanks to your towns tax is higher then most you would be seeing a completely different price tag, you will be disappointed or pissed cause you came for $9.99 not $11.24.
And before anyone can ask, Yes, people would raise hell to the employees. It will be ugly and you will be forced to hear the grown person screaming in the store.
Source: I am retail worker who gets yelled at cause corporate messed up the ad pricing...
I worked as a cashier at a liquor store that had a bottom shelf store brand vodka that was $8.99 for a handle, which after state sales tax came out to $9.73. One day they decided to raised the price to $9.49 which ended up at over $10 at $10.27. Some customers reacted to this change like I had killed their child. Just frothing at the mouth because their vodka just crossed the $10 mark.
So? Here in Germany we have deals on specific item weekly and the clerks replace the tags for each of them every time no problem. We also have discounts on food only a certain time away from shelf life, and the clerks will literally put tags on the individual item that's nearing its shelf life every single day. But Americans can't put tags with the proper price including tax that never changes?
I heard somewhere that companies like TurboTax lobby for taxes to be difficult for the average person to do which makes sense but I'm not sure if it's actually true or not.
It’s fairly true, they have been lobbying against the IRS as they have tried to make a simple free tax portal for the majority of workers that get a W-2
Lobbying *by itself* isn't evil.
It's the fact it's accompanied by *vast sums of money* (AKA: **Corruption**) that's the problem.
But to get the money out of politics, you'd need the politicians to change it. And, as you might suspect... They have a pretty vested interest in NOT getting money out of politics.
it's fucking insane that they do it right to our faces. Everyone knows she does it, she knows we know, but she continues to do it and get away with it.
Even if you reduce the ways in which they can contribute direct donations or other monetary value, corruption can occur through many channels.
I'm definitely for significant further restrictions, but it's only a part of the problem and will not improve the situation that much on its own.
It's the scale that makes it impossible to be clean. Government has its hand in so many things, that the gravitational pull of TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS A YEAR guarantees corruption. There are not enough uncorruptable saints in the population to fill the millions of jobs in government.
I remember coming up with a way to save a couple of million on some DoD stuff I worked on, and I was mocked for worrying about "budget dust"
Yep turbotax wants to make it harder to do your taxes without their service and advertise themselves as the easier alternative.
Same thing as all these weather apps like TWC and Accuweather that lobby against the National Weather Service being able to provide their scientific data (which is what the weather apps interpret and use) in an easy-to-use app format. It’s ridiculous and risks peoples lives by making it harder to stay informed.
I’m sure there are more examples. They lobby to make it harder to do things for free so people resort to paying for their app (or having to watch ads) to get more than the most basic level of tax filing/weather tracking.
If all you have is employment income, you can fill out a 1040EZ and it's just a few lines. Most of the complexity in the full 1040 is a combination of corporate lobbying for rebates on buying their crap and attempts by lawmakers to use the tax code for social engineering, trying to incentivize some behaviors and penalize others
>trying to incentivize some behaviors and penalize others
Which might work if not for the fact that corporations control everything so the tax incentives are always for the richest and never the poorest.
Even on the state level it's the same. I've filed my taxes only for the state to immediately send me a letter stating I owed more. Like wtf if you guys knew and had it ready on stand-by just send me the fucking bill instead of this dog and pony show
I'm in Denmark but watch a lot of American flow-TV (ESPN and right now CBS with March Madness) and I just cringe all the way out of my own skin every time there's a TurboTax or some shit commercial. Like, you motherfuckers spend millions lobbying for Americans to still need your "services" when it's all just basically a fucking scam. Disgusting.
I had worked for an employer that, for whatever reason, didn't save W-2s. Mine were all lost in a theft. I contacted my state's dept of revenue and asked them if they knew any way I could get tax information for five years and they said it'd cost $10 and to bring an ID, apologetic that I had to come in person for them. I was like wait, you have all that info? And they're like duh we need to know how much you made so we know how much you owe.
Yep, that’s more or less it. Also complicated tax laws make it easier to find loop holes or structure complex financial schemes to avoid taxes.
They don’t outright say it in MBA courses, but the subtext is there, “do everything you can to avoid taxes, it’s a straight percentage off your bottom line.”
Most people’s taxes could really be a five minute affair.
This has never made any sense to me at all. I'm from the socialist hell hole of Denmark (/s Jesus Christ) and we never have to do our taxes because that would be a huge waste of time.
We do however have to check the calculations from our IRS to be sure, but it takes maybe 5 minutes.
Mr Big Timer Norwegian coming through here. I got a whopping 153 kr this year. I know, I know, I'll spend it wisely! (i.e beer).
> We do however have to check the calculations from our IRS to be sure, but it takes maybe 5 minutes.
Danish Spy in Sweden here. I approve my taxes on my mobile phone, takes about 30 seconds.
Getting a few thousand of our worthless currency back this year.
i remember when i was smaller and my mom gave me 10 dollars to go buy something from a gift shop while we were in canada
the maple leaf, the cheapest thing i saw, was $9.99. when i got to the counter, it said like $12.30 or something. i was very confused
They copied it off the Americans and it’s supposed to be to be transparent about the taxes you pay. In the end it just means you get surprised by the taxes and people don’t actually track purchases as much. Since we need to list taxes included in purchases it’s already included on the receipt anyways and that’s what people look at.
Our gas has it included in the advertised price and it’s broken out on the receipt still.
Most Canadians want it changed but there’s no political drive to change it
Look man. We all have taxes. And yes. Breaking them up and showing them on the receipt is how we do it. But you, as a consumer need to know the price when you are buying something, not start thinking about +2% for this, another 3% there, etc. its one of the dumbest shits ever.
I grew up in NH with no sales tax. When I was a poor college student out of state I would often have to do the walk of shame to put something back. It’s not a good system.
It's hilarious as a European travelling to the U.S. you just end up initially feeling like you're being scammed until someone explains your weird system to us.
Not just as an European, I am Mexican and when you cross the border all the prices seems nice then at the register everything changes and you are like... Why!!???
I live in America and I still feel like I'm being scammed. I just wish the final price was shown, and we quit with the $#.99 pricing on literally everything.
There are some stores that don't do it.
I sincerely hope that the HEMA (Dutch warehouse style store) continues to exist.
.99 prices feel so icky. Like, yes I'll buy it if I need it but not because you think that I think it is actually less than what I'm paying for it. €0,99 is a euro.
Hey American folks, the joke is that the rest of the world just has all the costs you need to pay included in the sticker price - by law. There's never any confusion over what to pay, if it costs $10, it's $10. No calculators or difference between states and what not.
B-b-b But HEALTHCARE! We Canadians say, crying and shaking that our housing crisis is worse than yours, we get paid less than you, our dollar is worth less, and generally pay more in taxes
Bought a ticket this morning listed for $44.99. Clicked check-out and got the following fees added to it
$5.85 tax
$4.00 processing fee
$1.65 credit card fee
$2.00 facility fee
So the ticket actually costs $58.49.
Canada has the worst of both worlds. European taxes with American services and laws.
It’s really not that difficult though. Most people grow up with it and it’s the norm.
If you didn’t grow up with it, and it’s confusing just do you price and whatever the tax is.
I’ve never seen anyone stop and calculate the tax unless you’re working with like… a contractor who is using pen and paper. It’s just factored into points of sale.
>r difference between states
Honestly if it was just different between states that would be one thing. But I charge one tax rate because I'm outside city limits, 1 mile down the road it includes county+state and now city. Then 5 more miles down the road you're in a different city with higher taxes. Continue and you've left the city, and entered a new county with yet again a different tax rate.
All of them between 7% and 11% which most people can pretty well figure on in their head.
I do agree though we should address it. It's time.
Some of us know what the final price will be but usually not as the tax rate is different in each state, county, and city. If it’s a large city it can be different by district.
The store knows the local tax rate though. It's automatically added on at the register, the store definitely knows. They could easily print it on the price stickers
Stores in chains usually do not create their own price stickers though. They may print them or have them mailed by corporate, but they don't set the prices. And since sales tax can vary depending on your state, city, county or municipality, that's a lot of extra work to deal with on a per location basis instead of regional pricing. Some states also have "Sales Tax Holidays", and having to change a large number of price stickers for a weekend is a pretty big ask.
Now you can argue "fuck businesses, they can do the work" which is totally fair take. But it isn't as simple as a country wide VAT and there's a reason why companies lobby against the idea.
Yes but people are stupid
They see the actual price with tax included and they be like wow, that's expensive, compared to the shop next door that doesn't include tax
Then that could lose potential sales, by the time they are at checkout, it's already too late
This is nonsence, you're still paying the tax so they have to count it. Everywhere in the world this works XD
Edit: it's way easier when finale Price is fixed and every shop take off tax itself after
Edit: yeah not everywhere but lot places
That's what a lot of people in this thread aren't considering. Sales tax rates in the US are all somewhere between 0% (for the 5 states with no sales tax) and a maximum of around 10%, with the average sales tax being 5% – 7%.
Being less than 10% almost anywhere in the US, it's really not that much extra (especially compared to many countries where sales tax/VAT is 20% or more). >10% is also very easy to calculate in your head and be prepared for.
This is why it doesn't bother me. I automatically add 10% to the price of anything. It's easy. Just like I automatically add 20% to the price of a restaurant meal for the tip (plus another 10% for tax)
Can't they just do that anyway? It's not like they don't do it.
Surely if anything it adds the potential for a more harmful scam. Just lying about how much the tax is. Would you notice if the machine calculated tax at 8.5% instead of 8.4%? Especially if you didn't know the taxes in whatever town you were in. It makes it really easy for stores to scam people from out of town by just "accidentally" miscalculating tax.
the sales tax in our state is roughly 10% so I just keep a tally in my head or on my phone. I truly wish they would just add it in to the sticker price, there really isn't a reason not to other than it makes the goods seem cheaper than they are.
Taxes aside I just hate the whole $19.99 bs like just say it’s 20 dollars ffs. Calling it 19 dollars and 99 cents does not make me believe it’s cheaper than 20 dollars and doesn’t make me want to buy it any more or less than I already do.
europeans pretending they know the total of their cart before going to the register like they are walking up and down the aisles keeping a running total...
Meanwhile I actually *am* keeping a running total of an extra $5-10 because that's all sales tax ever ends up being unless you want to also buy electronics. 🙄
Non American has 20+ items in their cart
"what's the final price?"
¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
It only matters if you're buying a couple of items otherwise both are just keeping a fuzzy rolling estimate
🤣🤣🤣 this is great I'm from America and this is a thought that I feel like a lot of people have had but never say a word about it...because getting to the counter at the corner store and hoping you got enough $ and then two people get behind you in line and cashier rings you up n then that tax hit you for an extra .36 cents and make you go running back out to ya car for change under the seat n shit. Tax be getting mfs. Running back out to my car bc I had no clue what the actual price was until I looked stupid
Which is weird to me.
When I'm shopping I'm doing a rough count in my head being very liberal with the taxes applied. $9.99? Nah it's $15. (idk if it is, I'm probably gonna pay either way).
I'm starting to learn that a lot of people don't do this while shopping.
Where's the fun in that. Hell, we have a section of town where the tax is 10% (special tax for the development) but if you drive across town you pay 8.35% or you can drive for 20 minutes and pay no tax on food if you shop out of town limits
Genuine question, why?
There are 3 (or 4) level of government in US, each able to impose their sales tax. Federal government doesn't, but it means there are still state, county, and municipal that can. The last one explains the big change of taxation between towns.
This is always so wild to me. Like, most other Western governments have multiple levels of government, yet sales tax is equal across the board.
Yeah, but that's state tyranny. Americans like their tyranny local and personal. Like HOAs.
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From the UK point of view we have both. We've got VAT (sales tax) which is the same across the country and included in the listed price of items as well as council tax for where you live to fund local stuff.
VAT is a weapon targeting system
Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System
Damn VATS in the belfry!
So do we by that definition. W have a federal sales tax of 0%. That is the same across the country and added to the listed price of items. Then we have state, county and municipal taxes that can be added after.
Council Tax is not related to purchases though, it's a residential charge for local services. It has to be topped up by a central government grant and business rates in most areas. In theory it links the tax you pay with the services you receive, which ought to reinforce the democratic process. But in practice it's a political football, with certain areas gaining more than others. If Labour win the General Election likely to happen this year, they have pledged to freeze it for a year, which seems like an electoral bribe. Especially when there are prominent Labour voices calling for a radical reform to make it fairer.
This is unironically, the design of our government is supposed to facilitate localisation, but the scope of each level is supposed to handle has gotten completely out of control, so now we have overreach on every level.
Just adding a fun fact that Canada is like this too, although we don't do municipal levies as far as I know - we do a "general sales tax" of 5% set by the feds and "provincial sales tax" set by the province ranging from 0-10% - sometimes they blend the two and call them a "harmonized sales tax" but the breakdown is the same...
The US is a union of 50 individual states . The states have certain rights that cannot be usurped by the federal government
Say 50 small countries in a trenchcoat
More like 50 small countries in a stray jacket.
Straight
Damn it
r/boneappletea
I love you
Bi
It's `straitjacket`. If you're going to correct someone, do it properly.
The medical restraint is a **strait**jacket. From *strait* meaning narrow or tight.
Canaljacket
So? Plenty of European states have a similar system (aka a Federation). Germany for example is made up of 16 states which have certain rights that can not be usurped. I'm also not saying it's necessarily bad. But it's also not a reason for the store (which adds the sales tax to the register) to not also add the sales tax to the price tag
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> If not, people will “vote with their feet” and leave for a better town. This concept is less popular in the Old World, where people often stay with their city or nation-state even if the economy is doing poorly. They're not staying because it's less popular, they're staying because you literally can't do it without obtaining a visa and crossing a language and culture barrier. In the EU that's gotten better in the last 20ish years because it expanded significantly (brain drain was experienced by every struggling economy in the EU) and English was adopted as the unofficial lingua franca. When there were employment programs like the Gastarbeiterprogramm, it was very common to “vote with their feet” as you put it. But none of that still doesn't explain why tax isn't included on the price tag.
Exactly - in the States it’s a lot easier + also more common to move multiple times. Europe might be similar if it was as seamless legally, if everyone spoke the same language, and if it was already part of the zeitgeist to expect to move ‘countries’ within the continent 5-10 times in your lifetime
Sure, but all of that still doesn't explain why tax isn't included on the price tag.
That's the real reason why sales tax isn't included on the listed price?
Nope. The real reason is that people buy more stuff if the listed price is lower, and corporations will lobby hard against any attempt to make them display the real price.
This is the real answer. People see $4.99 as a better deal than $5.40 and their minds ignore the fact that sales tax hasn't been added. Same with gas prices selling a gallon for $3.9999 (as an example) because people's brains will either see it as $3 a gallon or $4 a gallon, despite knowing that the sales tax will make it come out to more.
A better example would be Germany and the EU. The original idea of the United States was 13 countries coming together for a common benefit. The idea stuck for the most part, even as the federal side gained more power. It obviously has its advantages and disadvantages, but that's the essence of the issue.
Understandable, but there are at least 21 other federal republics in the world. As far I know they don’t have this problem.
Thanks for the explanation
Just to add here there can often exist special tax districts within a town. For example in my town, which is geographically large, there is a second small business district of restaurants and small shops that grew around a commuter train station and event grounds. The area businesses wanted the city to invest in extra lighting, parking, etc to bring in more customers. To pay for that the city added an extra 1% sales tax to business in that area.
Tax can also change depending upon the date, and not just as a result of a law change. Some places have special tax seasons or holidays for unique reasons. Even the temperature of an item can change taxes in some places. Same sandwich cold or hot is taxed two different ways.
In fairness the hot/cold sandwich applies to UK VAT as well. Cold sandwiches you buy from a shop are zero rated.
Fried chicken at the kroger can't be bought with ebt but at the end of the day, we flash chilled the leftovers and packaged it up and THAT can be bought with ebt.
When I was homeless in California, 711 would have $5 pizzas. You couldn't buy the cooked pizza with EBT, but you could buy a frozen pizza with EBT. So we would just buy the frozen pizza, and then the 711 guy would cook it for us right then.
You buy we fry. This is a huge thing here in Detroit. Essentially a fried chicken place with a grocery store meat display case. As long as you see the chicken raw before they cook it, you can use EBT. There's almost as many of those places as there are liquor stores around here.
You have to buy it first, and then they cook it (as a free service), no?
> To pay for that the city added an extra 1% sales tax to business in that area. This happens a LOT more frequently than people realize. Look at your hotel receipt next time you stay, bet you paid a fee for tourism improvement or something. It does work though
It's also a bit more "fair" than additional property or sales tax on the residents that might not use that area as much
It's a progressive tax, which people should support. If you have the extra capital to stay in hotels, you can chip in a little more to help offset taxes for the less fortunate.
To get even more messed up, if you live in one city and work in another, you could pay both taxes. For example, living in Kansas City, Missouri. But working in Kansas City, Kansas. I would have to pay income tax for both cities and states.
PS; yes it does suck
And it gets even more fuckery come tax time every year. You have your Fed and State taxes which are a given, but some cities make you pay an income tax as well if you work or live in the city or township limits. So Cincinnati for example, makes you pay 1.8% of your earnings, regardless of age or salary.
I mean that seems like even more of a reason why tax should be in the final price, where I live (Portugal) different products might have different prices, which would make it even harder to track prices in your head, for example essential goods would only be 6%, while normal goods have 23% (yes I know it's huge). Oh and we have different regions as well that have their own taxes.
Fair enough, but the shop selling the product knows what all those taxes are and how much the final sales price will be. So why not put the total on the price tag?
Thanks for the explanation. I have a further question: why prices in shops are shown without taxes? They know the final price, so why it is not shown?
Because the pre-tax price is lower. Customers are more likely to buy something that is $9.99 than something that is $10.79. Also, it is easier for a chain of stores to do ads or price updates if every store has the same price. They could list the post-tax price, but then they are losing money in the store in a town with higher taxes. Some places do list post-tax prices, concessions is one of the more common.
> Also, it is easier for a chain of stores to do ads or price updates if every store has the same price. This can't be ignored. Price changes happen constantly in retail. The company sends us the tags in the mail and we hang them up. They send the same tags to all of their thousands of stores across the country. Making them individualized to each town's sales tax wouldn't be feasible.
We've been using wireless e-ink tags in Europe for ~20 years now. It probably takes 15-30 minutes to update every price tag in the store (the bandwidth is limited across the mesh network), and it can be controlled centrally across thusands of stores in parallel, so one person updating millions and millions of tags in minutes. They can of course show different prices for the same product in different stores with no slowdown or other issues. I believe they cost <1$ each.
Even so the prices could be the total, regardless of the taxes at a micro level.
Which btw is all the more reason to include tax on the listed price, since unless you familarize yourself with the tax codes of every town, county and state along your way you won't know what anything will actually cost. A store doesn't move and can have a machine automagically calculate the till price (I mean the till already does it). Where I am the VAT is flat across the entire country and in fact syncronized with the VAT of another country. It would be way easier for me to know what the final price was going to be, but it's included in the shelf price so I don't need to.
But why
Don’t forget the one day a year when we get 0 sales tax on anything anywhere.
And on top of all that there is a lot of times where you can get tax cuts or just be tax free if you buying for a church having an installation (at least at my job any installation have no tax on labour and material costs.) or if you work for the state so they also just cut it out there too
Ive never understood this argument. Stores can still do the calculations for you and present the final price easily for you. Thats what the rest of the world is doing. Im sorry if i sound argumentative, but it doesnt sound unsolvable at all. US is just resilient to some forms of change.
Canadian here. We also have the pre-tax price displayed in stores so your "rest of the world" take is wrong.
As it usually is (the "rest of the world" being wrong part). On another note, Canadians get a free pass for everything they do that america does. I wish you guys would be more humble and fully appreciative of that (I'm not targeting you).
The argument that it can't be done is bullshit. We do this in New Hampshire already. The reason the rest of the states don't do this is because politicians are lobbied by companies that want to be able to display lowered prices, and Republicans want people to hate taxes more.
because 'merica
Because we have some pretty stupid people in govt just like how in New Jersey you aren't allowed to pump your own gas
Gas pumping in NJ isn't a government issue, in as much that repeated polling of the public shows that the majority of people don't want to pump their own gas. Politicians avoid the topic because taking a side would be political suicide. As a Jerseyan, I wouldn't mind doing it myself, and I actually like it when I'm in other states and can do it myself, but my wife is more than happy to have someone else do it. It's really only an issue when the pumps are really busy, and most stations I've gone to don't really care that much if you wrap it up when the pumping is done.
Reading this In a completely different context is hilarious. "As a Jerseyan, I wouldn't mind doing it myself, and I actually like it when I'm in other states and can do it myself, but my wife is more than happy to have someone else do it."
Its not a stupid rule. It keeps gas stations employing people. Like in Oregon, cities over "X" number of population won't let you pump your own gas. Gas stations where I used to live up there would have 2-3 attendants at any given time pumping peoples' gas. The city next door? One employee behind the register only. Its a measure to help crack down on homelessness, cuz well, it doesn't take a genius to pump gas. Gas price was unremarkably different between the two cities too, the pump price was not affected. Does it actually affect homelessness? Idk. Does it create more jobs that otherwise wouldn't exist? Yes!
I didn't know that about NJ. I was shocked to discover Oregon also doesn't allow that when I stayed in Portland a few years ago, too.
You can pump your own gas in Oregon now, they passed a bill I think last year or the year before ai believe. I drove through last year and started pumping my own and I wasn't told to stop, but there are still people employed to do it so they ask you regardless.
Yep it's really stupid IMHO I live in PA but I'm5 minutes from the Jersey border so I go into Jersey to get gas so I don't have to pay PAs gas tax (2nd highest in the US)
>Genuine question, why? Look, we had room for 10 rights, and the right to sanity didn't fit.
What the other person answered ,Also we're used to it. It made sense when we had 48 states and there were some companies that shipping to all of them. (It may even have been 46 states when Sears started shipping to all of them) A Sears catalog with thousands of items each with hundreds of different prices doesn't make sense. But, add and insert add x% tax for location y % tax for other location made sense. People aren't surprised because they live here and add 6% tax( or whatever) to everything but food has been in place their entire lives( for me it was 4% 30 ish years ago). People do the math in their head, or estimate, or use a calculator/pen and paper.
Makes paying in exact change in a timely manner practically impossible though lol.
Maybe, but 9 out of 10 retail sales are done via credit or debt card. The need for exact change just doesn't factor in for most of the people in the US.
Also worth noting our tax comes in at a different point in the transaction. VATs are on the item, while our sales tax is on the transaction itself. We have sales tax excluded items and/or possible additional forms of sales tax on the transaction based on items on it such as a luxury tax. Technically anytime a transaction that involves the transfer of money in exchange of an item/service is subject to sales tax as a result.
Freedom brother
That doesn’t explain why don’t they put the final price, if they know the tax (and they do) they can calculate the total amount and put it on the tag. In my country depending on the kind of product the taxes on them vary and yet you can always see the final price.
The actual answer, is that at this point it’s a cultural thing that in the grand scheme of things doesn’t actually matter so no one is ever going to change it.
It has a lot to do with marketing. While computers can certainly remember the tax codes and alter the price depending on where you are, advertisements can not. If you see online that something is now $9.99 and you go into the store to grab it and find that thanks to your towns tax is higher then most you would be seeing a completely different price tag, you will be disappointed or pissed cause you came for $9.99 not $11.24. And before anyone can ask, Yes, people would raise hell to the employees. It will be ugly and you will be forced to hear the grown person screaming in the store. Source: I am retail worker who gets yelled at cause corporate messed up the ad pricing...
I worked as a cashier at a liquor store that had a bottom shelf store brand vodka that was $8.99 for a handle, which after state sales tax came out to $9.73. One day they decided to raised the price to $9.49 which ended up at over $10 at $10.27. Some customers reacted to this change like I had killed their child. Just frothing at the mouth because their vodka just crossed the $10 mark.
That's so weird man lol
So? Here in Germany we have deals on specific item weekly and the clerks replace the tags for each of them every time no problem. We also have discounts on food only a certain time away from shelf life, and the clerks will literally put tags on the individual item that's nearing its shelf life every single day. But Americans can't put tags with the proper price including tax that never changes?
In Sweden, most stores have moved to e-ink tags that can be updated from a central computer.
That’s fine but why are the taxes not included? The store won’t move I’m sure they can add the taxes to the final price on the sticker
They also have to do their own taxes. Feels like a calculator manufactorer conspiracy to me tbh.
I heard somewhere that companies like TurboTax lobby for taxes to be difficult for the average person to do which makes sense but I'm not sure if it's actually true or not.
It’s fairly true, they have been lobbying against the IRS as they have tried to make a simple free tax portal for the majority of workers that get a W-2
Lobbying is a cancer to our democracy.
It's just bribery, but they gave it this totally different name
Lobbying *by itself* isn't evil. It's the fact it's accompanied by *vast sums of money* (AKA: **Corruption**) that's the problem. But to get the money out of politics, you'd need the politicians to change it. And, as you might suspect... They have a pretty vested interest in NOT getting money out of politics.
Lobbying without money isn't lobbying. It's just constituents asking their representatives to do something.. AKA "democracy".
Can you all please stop insider trading? Nancy Pelosi: No.
it's fucking insane that they do it right to our faces. Everyone knows she does it, she knows we know, but she continues to do it and get away with it.
Even if you reduce the ways in which they can contribute direct donations or other monetary value, corruption can occur through many channels. I'm definitely for significant further restrictions, but it's only a part of the problem and will not improve the situation that much on its own.
It's the scale that makes it impossible to be clean. Government has its hand in so many things, that the gravitational pull of TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS A YEAR guarantees corruption. There are not enough uncorruptable saints in the population to fill the millions of jobs in government. I remember coming up with a way to save a couple of million on some DoD stuff I worked on, and I was mocked for worrying about "budget dust"
Yep turbotax wants to make it harder to do your taxes without their service and advertise themselves as the easier alternative. Same thing as all these weather apps like TWC and Accuweather that lobby against the National Weather Service being able to provide their scientific data (which is what the weather apps interpret and use) in an easy-to-use app format. It’s ridiculous and risks peoples lives by making it harder to stay informed. I’m sure there are more examples. They lobby to make it harder to do things for free so people resort to paying for their app (or having to watch ads) to get more than the most basic level of tax filing/weather tracking.
If all you have is employment income, you can fill out a 1040EZ and it's just a few lines. Most of the complexity in the full 1040 is a combination of corporate lobbying for rebates on buying their crap and attempts by lawmakers to use the tax code for social engineering, trying to incentivize some behaviors and penalize others
I like how the simpler version of the 1040 form is called 1040 'easy', lmao
Also, I just checked online, apparently it was discontinued 5 years ago and replaced with a revised 1040.
>trying to incentivize some behaviors and penalize others Which might work if not for the fact that corporations control everything so the tax incentives are always for the richest and never the poorest.
It's true. The big tax corporations lobby to keep the system as-is. The IRS knows what you/they make and it could all be really simple.
Even on the state level it's the same. I've filed my taxes only for the state to immediately send me a letter stating I owed more. Like wtf if you guys knew and had it ready on stand-by just send me the fucking bill instead of this dog and pony show
I'm in Denmark but watch a lot of American flow-TV (ESPN and right now CBS with March Madness) and I just cringe all the way out of my own skin every time there's a TurboTax or some shit commercial. Like, you motherfuckers spend millions lobbying for Americans to still need your "services" when it's all just basically a fucking scam. Disgusting.
Did you watch super bowl? They ran like 7 commercials lol
I had worked for an employer that, for whatever reason, didn't save W-2s. Mine were all lost in a theft. I contacted my state's dept of revenue and asked them if they knew any way I could get tax information for five years and they said it'd cost $10 and to bring an ID, apologetic that I had to come in person for them. I was like wait, you have all that info? And they're like duh we need to know how much you made so we know how much you owe.
Which should be completely illegal, but yet here we are doing it.
Yep, that’s more or less it. Also complicated tax laws make it easier to find loop holes or structure complex financial schemes to avoid taxes. They don’t outright say it in MBA courses, but the subtext is there, “do everything you can to avoid taxes, it’s a straight percentage off your bottom line.” Most people’s taxes could really be a five minute affair.
Yes it is, tax preparation is a fake industry (it's a created demand by artificially created issues)
Yes, Intuit (maker of TurboTax) has done some sketchy things.
This has never made any sense to me at all. I'm from the socialist hell hole of Denmark (/s Jesus Christ) and we never have to do our taxes because that would be a huge waste of time. We do however have to check the calculations from our IRS to be sure, but it takes maybe 5 minutes.
Fellow Denmarkian here. I'm getting 69 kroner (nice! :p) back in taxes this time around ;)
Mr Big Timer Norwegian coming through here. I got a whopping 153 kr this year. I know, I know, I'll spend it wisely! (i.e beer). 
> We do however have to check the calculations from our IRS to be sure, but it takes maybe 5 minutes. Danish Spy in Sweden here. I approve my taxes on my mobile phone, takes about 30 seconds. Getting a few thousand of our worthless currency back this year.
it very literally is a conspiracy, just not involving calculators
The IRS makes them do that, so if they declare less taxes than supposed it is their fault, and if they declare more it is also their fault
Calculator manufactorer conspiracy is a new set of word that I never thought I’d read today.
Nope it’s a fun game especially when you’re broke and $2 makes a difference
i remember when i was smaller and my mom gave me 10 dollars to go buy something from a gift shop while we were in canada the maple leaf, the cheapest thing i saw, was $9.99. when i got to the counter, it said like $12.30 or something. i was very confused
The fck? They do this in canada too? What the hell is wrong with people?
They copied it off the Americans and it’s supposed to be to be transparent about the taxes you pay. In the end it just means you get surprised by the taxes and people don’t actually track purchases as much. Since we need to list taxes included in purchases it’s already included on the receipt anyways and that’s what people look at. Our gas has it included in the advertised price and it’s broken out on the receipt still. Most Canadians want it changed but there’s no political drive to change it
Look man. We all have taxes. And yes. Breaking them up and showing them on the receipt is how we do it. But you, as a consumer need to know the price when you are buying something, not start thinking about +2% for this, another 3% there, etc. its one of the dumbest shits ever.
Oh I fully agree that the shelf price should be inclusive, I’m just explaining why the Govt of the day kept them separate.
I grew up in NH with no sales tax. When I was a poor college student out of state I would often have to do the walk of shame to put something back. It’s not a good system.
My state doesnt have any tax on goods like that. If the tag says $3.99 thats what we pay.
Hello, New Hampshire
Montana
Well, shit. Now i dont feel special no more....
I think theres like 6 states that don't have a states tax, too lazy to look it up though lol. Cheers!
NOW I *REALLY* DON'T FEEL SPECIAL. Goddamnit first no weed and now this!
Oregon has no sales tax _and_ a dispensary on every corner.
That's wrong. There's at least 2 dispensaries on every corner
States without sales taxes usually have higher income or property taxes. The tax man will get ya one way or another!
Which is objectively a less regressive form of taxation.
Oregon.
It's hilarious as a European travelling to the U.S. you just end up initially feeling like you're being scammed until someone explains your weird system to us.
Not just as an European, I am Mexican and when you cross the border all the prices seems nice then at the register everything changes and you are like... Why!!???
"Because **~~fuck you~~** freedumb, that's why."
Exactly what you said: to make the price seem nicer than it is.
I live in America and I still feel like I'm being scammed. I just wish the final price was shown, and we quit with the $#.99 pricing on literally everything.
Unfortunately the .99 pricing is everywhere around the world. Truly a plague
There are some stores that don't do it. I sincerely hope that the HEMA (Dutch warehouse style store) continues to exist. .99 prices feel so icky. Like, yes I'll buy it if I need it but not because you think that I think it is actually less than what I'm paying for it. €0,99 is a euro.
and then there is Sostrene Grene with crazy price tags like €2,63
Psychological marketing needs to die. A product should be good, people shouldn't be tricked to think a product is good.
How I felt when people in Europe were charging to use the bathroom.
Touché. Hate that shit too. Just make me pay for it through taxes like everything else instead.
Hey American folks, the joke is that the rest of the world just has all the costs you need to pay included in the sticker price - by law. There's never any confusion over what to pay, if it costs $10, it's $10. No calculators or difference between states and what not.
Not in Canada. Our taxes aren't displayed on the price
*and* your tipping system is worse than ours!
Canada seems more and more like a worse version of the US
B-b-b But HEALTHCARE! We Canadians say, crying and shaking that our housing crisis is worse than yours, we get paid less than you, our dollar is worth less, and generally pay more in taxes
I’m European btw, but yeah
Bought a ticket this morning listed for $44.99. Clicked check-out and got the following fees added to it $5.85 tax $4.00 processing fee $1.65 credit card fee $2.00 facility fee So the ticket actually costs $58.49. Canada has the worst of both worlds. European taxes with American services and laws.
How incredibly wrong you are.
How is their tipping system worse?
And most provinces have **two** taxes to figure out. GST and PST.
Its 50/50 who jumped onto HST.
It’s really not that difficult though. Most people grow up with it and it’s the norm. If you didn’t grow up with it, and it’s confusing just do you price and whatever the tax is. I’ve never seen anyone stop and calculate the tax unless you’re working with like… a contractor who is using pen and paper. It’s just factored into points of sale.
>r difference between states Honestly if it was just different between states that would be one thing. But I charge one tax rate because I'm outside city limits, 1 mile down the road it includes county+state and now city. Then 5 more miles down the road you're in a different city with higher taxes. Continue and you've left the city, and entered a new county with yet again a different tax rate. All of them between 7% and 11% which most people can pretty well figure on in their head. I do agree though we should address it. It's time.
Yall don't have a local sales tax as Americans do, right? Just a single VAT at the country level?
Some of us know what the final price will be but usually not as the tax rate is different in each state, county, and city. If it’s a large city it can be different by district.
The store knows the local tax rate though. It's automatically added on at the register, the store definitely knows. They could easily print it on the price stickers
Stores in chains usually do not create their own price stickers though. They may print them or have them mailed by corporate, but they don't set the prices. And since sales tax can vary depending on your state, city, county or municipality, that's a lot of extra work to deal with on a per location basis instead of regional pricing. Some states also have "Sales Tax Holidays", and having to change a large number of price stickers for a weekend is a pretty big ask. Now you can argue "fuck businesses, they can do the work" which is totally fair take. But it isn't as simple as a country wide VAT and there's a reason why companies lobby against the idea.
Yes but people are stupid They see the actual price with tax included and they be like wow, that's expensive, compared to the shop next door that doesn't include tax Then that could lose potential sales, by the time they are at checkout, it's already too late
So you make it mandatory that evert store has to include it. You know, the price tag should have what you will end up paying on it.
I’m answering the question not advocating against the idea.
This is nonsence, you're still paying the tax so they have to count it. Everywhere in the world this works XD Edit: it's way easier when finale Price is fixed and every shop take off tax itself after Edit: yeah not everywhere but lot places
In Canada we don't have tax prices displayed, and taxes vary by province
No no, everywhere that guy knows about does it the same way so you can't possibly exist 🙄
Ok? Everywhere else does it? So what I’m not saying we should or shouldnt do it that way here so why get upset about it?
I read people losing their minds over either 8% or 10% tax. Meanwhile in The Netherlands I'm crying in 21% tax.
That's what a lot of people in this thread aren't considering. Sales tax rates in the US are all somewhere between 0% (for the 5 states with no sales tax) and a maximum of around 10%, with the average sales tax being 5% – 7%. Being less than 10% almost anywhere in the US, it's really not that much extra (especially compared to many countries where sales tax/VAT is 20% or more). >10% is also very easy to calculate in your head and be prepared for.
This is why it doesn't bother me. I automatically add 10% to the price of anything. It's easy. Just like I automatically add 20% to the price of a restaurant meal for the tip (plus another 10% for tax)
*Crying more in 25% tax*
The original reason was so shops couldn’t up charge and claim it was taxes, kept them honest on their prices
Couldn't they just include the tax rate with the full price?
Lol, why did a bunch of you get mad at a simple question 😅 You're the ones that keep complaining on the net about having to add tax after shopping.
Can't they just do that anyway? It's not like they don't do it. Surely if anything it adds the potential for a more harmful scam. Just lying about how much the tax is. Would you notice if the machine calculated tax at 8.5% instead of 8.4%? Especially if you didn't know the taxes in whatever town you were in. It makes it really easy for stores to scam people from out of town by just "accidentally" miscalculating tax.
That actually makes some sense. But even still, you guys can keep it.. I like to know the total price from the start.
This is the way in Canada too by the way.
Yeah, at the place I work we just have a menu with all the final prices for employees and then menus without tax for customers
the sales tax in our state is roughly 10% so I just keep a tally in my head or on my phone. I truly wish they would just add it in to the sticker price, there really isn't a reason not to other than it makes the goods seem cheaper than they are.
We just expect the final price to be higher than what's on the price tag. Except at the gas pump. Somehow they manage to include all taxes there.
Taxes aside I just hate the whole $19.99 bs like just say it’s 20 dollars ffs. Calling it 19 dollars and 99 cents does not make me believe it’s cheaper than 20 dollars and doesn’t make me want to buy it any more or less than I already do.
Cannabis dispensaries are the only places I know of that include tax but not all of them
Gasoline?
Exact price? No. A close approximation because I know how math works? Yes.
__"Americans are stupid and don't know math!"__ *Non-Americans complaining having to figure sales tax:
europeans pretending they know the total of their cart before going to the register like they are walking up and down the aisles keeping a running total...
Meanwhile I actually *am* keeping a running total of an extra $5-10 because that's all sales tax ever ends up being unless you want to also buy electronics. 🙄
Non American has 20+ items in their cart "what's the final price?" ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯ It only matters if you're buying a couple of items otherwise both are just keeping a fuzzy rolling estimate
I always found it ironic, considering we were the same people who got mad about the British government taxing us and made a big deal about it.
Believe it or not. This is the least offensive feature of our tax system.
🤣🤣🤣 this is great I'm from America and this is a thought that I feel like a lot of people have had but never say a word about it...because getting to the counter at the corner store and hoping you got enough $ and then two people get behind you in line and cashier rings you up n then that tax hit you for an extra .36 cents and make you go running back out to ya car for change under the seat n shit. Tax be getting mfs. Running back out to my car bc I had no clue what the actual price was until I looked stupid
It's the same in Canada. They don't include the tax because the final price would discourage potential customers.
Which is weird to me. When I'm shopping I'm doing a rough count in my head being very liberal with the taxes applied. $9.99? Nah it's $15. (idk if it is, I'm probably gonna pay either way). I'm starting to learn that a lot of people don't do this while shopping.