Bad Humor and Taxes

[bhskittykatt]

I once had a guest explode on me over taxes once. Apparently, in whatever country he's from, the price on the sign includes the tax. Over here, it's our rate before tax. That's how it is at the hotels, at the grocery store, at the retail store...pretty much everywhere except the movie theatre and the fuel at the gas station. He went on a tirade about our whole pricing system, and how much better it was in [his country]. That's nice, but you're not in your country, you're here, so shut up and pay up!

[manybellsdown]

I can only imagine the crap people who sell mobile phones get over tax. Maybe it's just here, I don't know, but when you have those phones that are $39.99 with a contract extension, they have to charge you tax on the full retail price of the phone. The last phones we bought were $30 apiece, and the tax was $50. I swear the poor guy flinched when the tax came up.

[dalesys]

Out of curiosity, why aren't sales etc. taxes included in the item price for you U.S-ians?

Some old gripe about taxation without representation.

Really. And a Tradition! of avoiding hidden fees.

[EricKei]

Out of curiosity, why aren't sales etc. taxes included in the item price for you U.S-ians?

Because that would make sense?

That's pretty much it >_>

I can sort of understand why -- after all, the tax money doesn't go to the store, and listing it that way allows states with zero sales taxes to have consistent "shelf pricing" with those that do. Sales tax here is 4% state, plus 4.75% to 5.75% ish for city, no other taxes added in, and property taxes are rather low, especially in [our one major non-capital city proper].

My best guess? For the same reason that almost ALL prices you will see for any items sold here in the US end in ".95", or, more commonly, ".99" --- because it makes the item seem a bit cheaper. I'm fairly certain that there have been psycho-social studies out there that prove that most people really DO unconsciously see a significant price difference between "$10" and "$9.99". I have seen a small number of places that list their prices as tax-included for everything, but they are typically very small (one was a tiny ice cream shop that had maybe ten total price points, so they just set unusual base prices so that totals would come out to $2 even or $3.50, etc, with the tax).

It gets worse with gasoline/petrol. Prices on that are typically shown in a format like "$3.79 9/10 per gallon" >_< ... Despite the fact that our currency has not had anything smaller than a penny in a looooong time. Note that fuel prices as shown DO include taxes.

[Merriweather]

Remember! You guys have universal healthcare. We do not, and we don't have several other things which cause our taxes to run between 5-12% depending.

So the difference in government projects often causes a different tax rate.

And of course, that's just sales tax. There are still property taxes, income taxes, and various and assorted other taxes, some of which can also vary from state to state (or even city to city).

I've no idea how to actually compare the bottom line of taxes from country to country, and would probably end up heading to fratching if I ever tried to

Even trying to compare from state to state is like comparing apples to zebras. For instance, our state has no sales tax, but the next state over has no income tax.

[hinakiba777]

Wow freaking out over 30 cents is really lame. I mean I can understand how sales tax making a purchase way higher than you hoped like adding 30 dollar or 100 dollars to the cost, but 30 cents? Get over it!

Yeesh. And here I was thinking that 9.5 was pretty sweet, because it's 15% here in this backwater province. Most places don't show it in the sticker, sticker is the price before tax. Only place I know that includes the tax in the shelf tag is the liquor store.

There is only one province in Canada that currently has 15% sales taxes. I know your province MWAHAHA.

[PepperElf]

People have two choices - sales tax or higher property tax. DECIDE AND THEN BE HAPPY!

That's pretty much the truth around here. My state has low sales taxes, but higher income taxes. The next state over has no income tax but gets ya on the sales tax.

So yes, some people DO live in the other state and come here for some shopping.

[AmbrosiaWriter]

That's pretty much the truth around here. My state has low sales taxes, but higher income taxes. The next state over has no income tax but gets ya on the sales tax.

So yes, some people DO live in the other state and come here for some shopping.

I hope they use cash only. If they use credit or debit the state government will find out about their "no sales tax" shenanigans and tax them on it anyway.

[morgana]

Out of curiosity, why aren't sales etc. taxes included in the item price for you U.S-ians? It's included in the sticker/list price of EVERYTHING in Australia. Usually it's listed on the receipt how much of what you paid is GST (10%) but not always - I just checked my wallet and found 2 receipts without GST listed.

It's because no two places in the US have the same tax rate; each state, county, and sometimes municipality has its own taxes. And it would be impossibly costly for any chain store to print ads/flyers/price tickets for a hundred and eleventy different stores.

Example: I just moved from Topeka Kansas to Lincoln Nebraska, two different US cities in two different US states. If I bought a bottle of Coca-Cola from Kwik-Shop (a gas station chain) in Topeka or in Lincoln, the base price is $1.49. However, because of the different taxes in each city, the Coke will cost me $1.60 in Topeka, and $1.58 in Lincoln. In one of the small towns I pass through driving between them, that same $1.49 bottle of Coke at a Kwik-Shop could cost me anything from $1.55 to $1.69.

If Kwik-Shop had to provide signage for every different one of its stores to cover every one of the different tax scenarios, they'd go broke.

[Jay 2K Winger]

When I worked at the wholesale club, I dealt with two different types of tax gripes.

Type 1 were people who looked at the receipt and asked "why I am I being charged tax twice?" The reason for two tax entries on the receipts was that the system parsed out food items and non-food items into two separate tax listings. Since Virginia sometimes has different tax rates for food and non-food sales tax, it made sense. Of course, sometimes the tax rates were the same, and since the rates were listed beside the entry...

Type 2 were usually foreign, and used to getting their purchases tax exempt at other stores because they were diplomats or similar. If these customers had their store membership listed as tax-exempt, no problem. Otherwise, nope, sorry, you have to pay taxes like everybody else. Fortunately, these didn't give me too much trouble either.

[AmbrosiaWriter]

Type 1 were people who looked at the receipt and asked "why I am I being charged tax twice?" The reason for two tax entries on the receipts was that the system parsed out food items and non-food items into two separate tax listings. Since Virginia sometimes has different tax rates for food and non-food sales tax, it made sense.

I hope the people asking that weren't from VA, otherwise that's just sad that they don't know their own states' taxes for things so common as "Food" and "Non-food."

[PepperElf]

I hope they use cash only. If they use credit or debit the state government will find out about their "no sales tax" shenanigans and tax them on it anyway.

Dunno. The other state isn't losing out as much as you'd think tho. They have bigger shopping areas. For example if I want to go to Steak & shake, target, Best buy, ANY frozen yogurt shop*, jack in the box, or the Apple store... I have to go to the other state. The ones here are too far away to make it worth while.

* until the new one opens up here. Can't wait for that one.

plus from what i've been told for regular stuff like groceries or personal goods they won't care so much. but if you're say buying up a shit ton of cars... yeah then they'll notice.

[Jay 2K Winger]

I hope the people asking that weren't from VA, otherwise that's just sad that they don't know their own states' taxes for things so common as "Food" and "Non-food."

Oh, I got people in VA asking that too, trust me.

[Andara Bledin]

Out of curiosity, why aren't sales etc. taxes included in the item price for you U.S-ians? It's included in the sticker/list price of EVERYTHING in Australia. Usually it's listed on the receipt how much of what you paid is GST (10%) but not always - I just checked my wallet and found 2 receipts without GST listed.

Because they aren't uniform.

Each state has it's own state-wide tax rate, which can be 0%.

Then different counties within the state can have additional taxes.

And different cities can have even more taxes added on.

And that doesn't even begin to get into things that have special tax rates that only apply to those commodities (such as soda, which can include a redemption value for the container that is never on the sticker).

So, as mentioned, advertising would be an utter nightmare.

Plus, everybody knows that sales tax exists, even people from states without it.

^-.-^

[macphile]

I just returned from Europe, where I got very used to paying the stated price. If something was 3 euros, I could just count out 3 euros (in change!) and walk away. My grandmother used to visit from England and would always get thrown off at checkout when they asked her for more money than the item supposedly cost.

I think it'd be nice if the sales tax were shown somewhere in a store. The people who live there know the rate well enough, but visitors don't. I've occasionally been surprised on a trip when asked for quite a bit more than I thought I'd be asked for. Here, the state rate is 6%, and the municipal is 2.25%, but obviously, in some places, it's over 9% total. Or who knows how much.