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Comment by pjsg | Hacker News Reader

I always object to US retail adding Tax to the price of the items. In the UK (and I expect Europe) the price on the shelf is the price that you pay. VAT is included.

In the US, you walk into a store and have to become an expert at understanding local taxes in order to figure out how much anything costs. Hotels often have four of five extra fees tacked on.

I'd like "The price you see is the price you pay" to be the rule.

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Most places in the US, the local tax is the same statewide. Not in Ohio, where it can vary by township, sometimes across invisible boundaries. I once attended a large flea-market where such a boundary cut through the fairgrounds. Taxes were different on one side of the line than the other.

It's so bad that Ohio actually has a mobile app that uses your phone's GPS to figure out which jurisdiction you're in and show the applicable tax rate.

If I say mean things about Ohio from time to time, this is part of why.

> I once attended a large flea-market where such a boundary cut through the fairgrounds. Taxes were different on one side of the line than the other.

Does this matter though? Even if the tax is different from one stall to another, they could still publish a price that includes tax.

They would still have to know which side of the grounds they are on to charge that tax anyway. It seems like poor excuses to me.

Same in California, it varies by county and city: https://www.cdtfa.ca.gov/taxes-and-fees/rates.aspx

Obnoxious to keep track of.

> Most places in the US, the local tax is the same statewide.

Is it? Kansas[1] has the same setup:

> Q:What is the sales tax rate in Kansas?

> A: The state rate is 6.50%. However, various cities and counties in Kansas have an additional local sales tax.

I feel like I've seen posts on HN in the past about how hard it is for online retailers to properly figure sales tax and should outsource the lookup to <insert startup here>.

[1]: https://www.ksrevenue.gov/faqs-taxsales.html

It often even varies by item, or there are weird incentives/carve-outs for some products.

For example, shoes are sales tax free in NYC (if they're less than $110). This can mean that the difference between a pair for $109 and one for $111 is close to $10.

When grocery shopping, I'm always surprised which items are taxed and which are tax free. Other than most (but not all) produce and basics like pasta, bread etc. I'd consider staples usually being tax free, I haven't been able to detect any underlying at all so far.

It's not just shoes, it's all clothing. Any individual clothing item below a certain cutoff is tax-free.

Most restaurants and companies know which sales tax rate applies to you. They could include it in their prices.

They MUST. Otherwise, how do they know how much to charge you at the register?

There are cities and counties with their own tax separate from the state sales tax in most states, if I’m not mistaken.

>It's so bad that Ohio actually has a mobile app that uses your phone's GPS to figure out which jurisdiction you're in and show the applicable tax rate.

I'm curious how legally binding/legitimate that is, considering consumer-grade GPS can be fairly inaccurate at the best of times.

My gut feeling is it's a "don't quote me on that" good will guesstimate, but some professional insight would be interesting.

They know how much to charge you at the till, therefore they know what price to put on the label. It is that simple.

For webstores, require customer to disclose location so the right price can be computed; they have to do that when it comes to the billing page so it isn't novel work.

Everything else is bullshit reasoning to get away with false pricing/false advertising.

Okay but what happens if the tax changes, do you really expect retailers to reprint their labels every few months?

What do they do when the price of gas changes?

Taxes change every few months? Anyways, yes, I expect them to reprint them if the price changes as well, which actually is liable to happen somewhat often. If you’re worried about paper waste, they make lcd labels too, which can be reprogrammed on the fly, so you can’t even make the “reprint” argument. It’s really and truly not an unsolved problem.

That doesn't sound very economically conservative or environmentally friendly. I (and many other conservative HN readers) would probably not shop if stores were to do this.

Completely agree.

You should vote out all these idiots who try to change your tax rates every couple of months.

Simply, yes.

Yes.

> Most places in the US, the local tax is the same statewide

I don't think this is true. Sure, the state tax is the same state wide, but the county and city taxes aren't! To pick a random state: https://www.salestaxhandbook.com/kansas/rates

> Most places in the US, the local tax is the same statewide.

Didn't quite pass my seasonally congested anecdotal sniff test. Turns out[1]:

  - 74% (37 states) vary depending on a local rate
  - 18% (9 states) are fixed at a state level
  - 8% (4 states) don't have sales tax

> Not in Ohio, where it can vary by township, sometimes across invisible boundaries.

Ohio isn't really exceptional in this regard; a few examples that come to mind:

  - San Francisco = 8.625% v. South San Francisco = 9.875% v. Oakland = 10.25%
  - Julington Creek Plantation (FL) = 7.5% v. Fruit Cove (FL) = 6.5%

[1] https://www.sale-tax.com/

Note that South San Francisco is actually in a different county.

Exactly why I cherry-picked that example; it's consistent with the parent's Ohio example in that most transients flying to SF via SFO don't even realize that they're technically in a different city/county.

Similar situation with Julington Creek Plantation and Fruit Cove; both are technically in the same county (St. Johns County) and literally butt up against each other, and yet the former pays Jacksonville (Duval County) sales tax.

Wow, thank you, I had no idea it was that bad. I live in one of those magical 9 states where it's fixed at state-level and thought that was standard.

In Louisiana it also varies by parish and locality.

"I'd like "The price you see is the price you pay" to be the rule."

Totally agree. I don't care what other fees or taxes go into the price. They are all cost of doing business. Just wait until the baker charges you extra for the flour and yeast that went into the bread.

Meh, that one I do like, if you read enough EU comments you see people arguing over why the price of X is more over there, or why does Y country have a higher income tax rate but provide less, totally forgetting they pay a 20% sales tax on just about everything.

At least sales tax the company is basically telling you "this one's on your government, if you don't like it take it up with them".

Hotels and some things are a huge mess.

But generally your random consumer buying a random widget has some idea about what taxes are involved and roughly what to expect when they buy specific consumer goods / the machine tells them what to pay.

It's complex if you want to do the math and get the exact number each time, but for most transactions it's a fairly small amount / not something you need to think about / need to know the exact number.

If I go pickup a burrito I'm not worrying about if it is $10 or $10.25.

If I wanted to worry about that it is possible to figure that out without knowing all the taxes myself.

In my experience, hotels show total cost prominently. Go to Marriott/Hilton/Hyatt/IHG/choice/Wyndham websites, and before you can reserve, it will show you total cost and list potential parking/pet/resort/other fees.

But the vendor needs to figure out the exact number anyway at checkout! It's not like they get to avoid the calculation effort this way.

In the US when you buy a vehicle you pay the tax on it. Every time. It's ridiculous.

Some states charge you sales tax only on the difference between the new car and the trade in. Often person to person car sales aren't charged sales tax (but maybe sometimes there's a transfer tax?)

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