They should ban hidden taxes too. The sticker price should be the final price.
The price on the tag, is exactly what you pay (same with services, like hotels).
Since this is Japan, it's a high price, but no surprises.
Also, the service is amazing, and they won't accept tips. If you leave money on the table, they will chase after you, to give it back.
I visited Japan some years back and loved this aspect of the culture as well. An Australian ski guide (this was a winter visit) explained it like so: "the Japanese attitude is to want to do a good job by default. Tipping implies that a good job is only done because of pay. The Japanese see quality service as intrinsically valuable in itself."
I have a friend that basically shops as part of her job. She has been power-shopping, mostly in Europe (dream job, I suppose), for decades.
She tells me that she runs into the same sales associates, year after year, and has watched them “grow up” over years.
So it seems to be possible, at least in Europe, for people to make lifelong careers in the service industry.
HN folks are privileged. We have careers that interest us, engage us, and reward us.
That's not the norm, in this world. I'm grateful for my career. I know quite a few folks that make excellent money, doing jobs they hate. In my mind, that's kind of a nightmare.
https://ic.pics.livejournal.com/icon_uk/11800056/855574/8555...
One of the big differences between here in Japan and other parts of the world I’ve visited and lived in, is the near absence of service staff who actively make a point of looking like they hate their life and treat you like crap, though this is slowly changing here too.
That's the norm, not the exception, in developed countries.
It's obviously not the norm in countries that have sales taxes which vary by locality.
Whether a country is "developed" or not has nothing to do with it. The vast majority of countries in Africa have a VAT, while the world's richest country has a sales tax.
Why not? If each store or restaurant or theatre or whatever in each locality know what price to bill you, they know the applicable price to show you upfront.
> Whether a country is "developed" or not has nothing to do with it. The vast majority of countries in Africa have a VAT, while the world's richest country has a sales tax.
The relevance of developed or not is how much of the economy is informal or includes a part of negotiation.
Because it makes state-level or national-level advertising of prices impossible. Or even local-level in many cases.
> The relevance of developed or not is how much of the economy is informal or includes a part of negotiation.
No it doesn't, where are you getting that? Feel free to browse:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developed_country
and Ctrl+F for "informal" or "negotiation". There are a lot of indicators of developing vs developed countries, but your idea is most assuredly not one of them. Also, sales tax vs VAT has nothing to do with an informal economy or price negotiation either.
Hardly impossible, just slightly less easy ("available for $X* (pre-tax)" / "starting at $X").
And are seriously claiming that ease for advertisers takes precedence over ease of use and pricing transparency for consumers?
> and Ctrl+F for "informal" or "negotiation". There are a lot of indicators of developing vs developed countries, but your idea is most assuredly not one of them. Also, sales tax vs VAT has nothing to do with an informal economy or price negotiation either.
Thank you. What I meant was that the only reason it might not be the standard in some developing countries is that they might have more informal economies with more negotiations involved. Literally the only legitimate excuse. But when that's not the case, from Morocco to Sri Lanka to Uzbekistan, price is shown upfront, everything included.
In large countries like Canada, and I would imagine the US, you probably don't want to advertise prices nationally. The cost of goods to will be different for a business in Vancouver and Southern Ontario compared to the Atlantic Provinces. Never mind small towns in remote communities connected to the road network, such as Northern Ontario. Especially never mind small towns in remote communities that are not connected to the road network.
As a kid, having grown up in the UK I knew that if the price label said £1.99 and I had £2 in my pocket I could afford it, with £0.01 change. First time I went to the USA as a young teenager I remember being quite embarrassed when the thing I thought I was getting for $1.99 was actually not $1.99 but $2.17 or whatever, and I had to leave without buying. Felt quite deceptive and totally incomprehensible.
In the case of sales tax, it's deliberate propaganda. "Here's what we would have charged you if it weren't for greedy old Uncle Sam."
All the while the prices you see as a shopper are inclusive.
The price excluding tax is the only one you can read at a distance, that draws you in. As someone from the UK who is used to seeing price tags show the final price you pay at the till, I was constantly disappointed that items weren't quite such a bargain as I'd first hoped.
On the whole there are still many things that are much cheaper than in the UK though :)
I traveled to Tokyo for over 20 years, and always paid what was on the sticker.
I was told that the tax was included in the price.
I remember one of my bigger purchases, was a ¥75,000 Oceanus watch, and that was exactly what I paid.
As a tourist you don't always have to pay the consumption tax though.
I remember the saleswoman asking to see my passport, when I was buying the watch (it was that big department store in Akihabara).
It's crazy to me that in the US I can never be sure how much I'll end up paying...
Also, while it is the norm in Japan to include the tax, there are some exceptions.
(Japan has 2 rates, 8% for certain items like food, and 10% for everything else).
Have you ever heard the term "Fronting"? In most stores, employees are required to individually ensure each and every item on the shelf is organized and pulled to the front for optimum display. They do this sometimes multiple times a day. In busier stores, you will have to restock high volume items multiple times per day.
The technology for digital pricetags has been cheaply available since the first kindle in the late 2000s. Most companies have avoided spending the money on buying them because the cost of labor in America is cheap enough that you can just have the normal employees do it every day. Digital pricetags are only now becoming common. Mostly because store companies are trying to figure out a way to charge you a personalized price that takes as much of your money as possible.
Yet at any given moment, every proprietor is miraculously able calculate the taxes due at the point of sale. The variety of tax regimes, and the fact that the amounts change doesn't impact the ability to calculate the final amount due.
Where in the US do the sales tax rates change so frequently? I've never seen this.
There is a caveat -- if you count the "sales tax holidays" in various US states, it means in those places, tax rates for some products change at least twice a year -- from 7% to 0% then back to 7%, for example.
The exception here is also the holiday surcharge (an extra fee on holidays and Sundays), which has to be "disclosed" before ordering. Usually there is a small sign somewhere that nobody pays attention to.
Nobody's trying to fool you by not including sales taxes. There's just no way to show them in advance, unless you want to start typing your address and zip code into every shopping website before you even browse.
If I'm signed in to the shop from making a previous purchase, they will use the location of the previous purchase.
But this isn't about Denmark -- it is about the US.
In the US, there are over 13,000 different sales tax jurisdictions, and each one of them may have a different tax rate.
I wish the best to anyone who would ever be tasked with sorting that out with any semblance of accuracy using IP geolocation databases.
Just a thought...
Nationally (or as some may prefer, "federallly"), the sales tax rate is already zero -- and has always been zero.
To add on for any else trying to figure out the 13k number from this statement.
Counties can also apply their own additional taxes.
Cities can also apply their own additional taxes.
On top of just that, the cities and counties can set different taxes in the same area, such as a sugar tax or an alcohol tax or even a pre-prepared food tax vs groceries. It gets complicated fast.
per state, I understand the tax. set it per state, and be done with it. maybe split it in some % with the city (I don't know if cities directly get a portion of it already or not?), so it's a win-win.
But even assuming "good enough" IP geolocation exists: In order for this to be implemented both uniformly and nationally, we'd need a new constitutional amendment that would grant the federal government the ability to regulate how sales taxes work within states.
Because right now, we have this: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
Items I order at home are subject to a 7.25% sales tax rate.
My neighbor across the street (our front doors are maybe 80 feet apart) pays 6.75%.
We both live in the same zip code. We both live within the same city. We both live in the same school district. We each live in two different counties.
(And up the road a bit, a third county is involved instead.)
But some cities have their own sales taxes in addition to (or instead of) county sales taxes, so county alone isn't good enough.
Besides, there's literally 30 different counties in the US named "Hancock".
(If this were an easy problem to solve it'd have been solved a long time ago.)
---
I think we're already back to where we started, wherein: In order to display an accurate sales tax, we need to know the address, city, and state of the buyer.
It is my considered opinion that it is all quite resoundingly fucked.
There's a very small % of traffic that actually uses VPNs
Remember, sales tax isn't something big like state-level. It's literally town-level, including tiny towns. Two sides of the same street can have a different sales tax.
Not to mention all the extra rules, such as individual clothing items under $110 being exempt in New York.
You know where you live, you know what your local sales tax is. The current system works fine.
> You know where you live, you know what your local sales tax is.
No, I in fact don't know, because I have better things to do than to keep up with what my city and state have extended sales tax to this month, what carveouts exist ("no sales tax on unhealthy snacks except ice cream" and stuff like that) etc.
And there is absolutely no excuse for in-person stores that do, in fact, have perfect a priori knowledge of all of this.
By your logic I shouldn’t have to pay income tax on sales because my customers already paid income tax. We could simply the whole thing by just making dollar bills worth $0.66.
People often believe that because something has been for a while, it must always be so. Not too long ago we didn't have sales tax (introduced in the 1950's), and things were fine.
You are taxed on your income, and you are taxed on your expenses. If you invest that money or do anything productive with it, it gets taxed again. That's such a ridiculous idea - pick one and stick with it. Make it whatever percentage it needs to be, and that's it.
When someone looks at their bank account - that ought to be the final word on how much purchasing power that individual has. It shouldn't be handwavy minus 7-12%.
Mind you, that's 7-12% in addition to the 20-30% you already paid.
I’d love to abolish regressive sales taxes and return to 1950s level progressive income tax rates. You have my vote.
The idea of "Paying what you can afford" is BS everywhere it's been implemented - from school tuition to soccer camp to taxes. Everyone feels burned and like the "others" aren't paying what they should be.
Federal taxes should be a flat percentage, no deductions, no credits, no so-called "loop holes"... nothing. Every citizen pays the same percentage (whatever it needs to be).
The incumbent tax apparatus would never allow us to have something so simple, though.
For a nation that got it's start in no small part due to being over-taxed, it's very interesting to see just how much tax shenanigans we tolerate today.
> Progressive income tax is also silly. Just because you earn more money than someone else doesn't mean you derive more benefits from the government.
I think "pay what you can afford" is fair because the only way to make half a million dollars (or more) a year is to disproportionately reap the benefits of society. Marginal income tax is fair in the sense that everyone does pay the same. Your $11,001st dollar is taxed the same as everyone else, just like your $578,126th dollar. If you don't want to pay the highest rates then take advantage of deductions (aka incentives aka loopholes) and invest in creating jobs.
> Everyone feels burned and like the "others" aren't paying what they should be.
I definitely don't feel this way and I am happy to pay my marginal rates. I just don't think they go far enough.
> Federal taxes should be a flat percentage, no deductions, no credits, no so-called "loop holes"... nothing. Every citizen pays the same percentage (whatever it needs to be).
Do you propose a flat income tax or a flat wealth tax? Should capital gains be taxed as income?
> For a nation that got it's start in no small part due to being over-taxed, it's very interesting to see just how much tax shenanigans we tolerate today.
My understanding was that the issue was lack of representation or ability to levy local taxes but I admit my knowledge of that point in history is weak. The America of today is certainly different from revolutionary times. I would say it is better.
This is where we fundamentally disagree.
You buy products because you want/like them. The people who make them are not disproportionately reaping benefits of society - they are reaping benefits of creating productive and desirable products.
This view flirts with the idea that people "extract" wealth from the public, and that people are taken advantage of and/or manipulated into buying things.
> I definitely don't feel this way and I am happy to pay my marginal rates. I just don't think they go far enough.
People universally feel the government (local, state, federal) overwhelmingly wastes their tax money - yet so many people demand others pay more of their earned income to this uncaring ineffective machine. Tax receipts will never be enough for the government, and some people will continue to advocate plowing more of other people's money into the dark abyss. That's madness.
> Do you propose a flat income tax or a flat wealth tax? Should capital gains be taxed as income?
I propose a straight flat income tax percentage, without any deductions, credits, anything. While the percentage is fixed, the dollar amount obviously scales with income. Things like capital gains are solved this way by taxing the actual income you generated from the investments.
I'm making up numbers, but say it's 20%. No matter if you earned $1 of income, or $1,000,000 - you pay 20%.
A flat tax of 20% would be ruinous to the poor and lower middle class. That can’t be sustained without an enormous increase in income or some guarantees around living expenses.
If I understand your definition of flat tax then capital gains would be untaxed as well so the wealthiest would pay even less.
I understand the ideology. Taxes should be simple and equal. I just don’t think that ideology is worth defending. The price is too high when the benefits are so unclear.
This is a very problematic view of the world, and is not in line with reality.
The people who earn $10MM a year make decisions that impact the lives of thousands (10's of thousands, or 100's of thousands) of employees. They are usually also directly responsible for millions of dollars in salaries every month.
The myth that executives running a business don't earn their pay is silly.
> A flat tax of 20% would be ruinous to the poor and lower middle class.
Also not true even a little bit. Most of the lower and middle class already pay more than 20%.
But those decisions are worthless without people to carry them out.
> They are usually also directly responsible for millions of dollars in salaries every month.
So what? The salaries may add up to millions but what’s the denominator? This doesn’t justify a 100x multiplier on earnings.
> Also not true even a little bit. Most of the lower and middle class already pay more than 20%.
Are you including sales, property, and state income tax?
Median income in the US is $80,610.00. The effective federal income tax rate at that income level is 16.23% but that assumes no deductions. In reality the median earner is going to take the standard deduction for $13,850.00 so they’re only going to pay federal income tax on $66,760.00 so their effective rate is 15.04%. This doesn’t consider student loan payments, mortgage interest deductions, or retirement account contributions, which will further lower the effective rate.
This is for the median income. For lower incomes the effect is even more dramatic.
So the only way most of the lower and middle class pay more than 20% is if you count all taxes paid. But that means for your flat 20%-no-deductions tax to be a better deal it has to come with an abolition of all other taxes.
If so how do municipalities get funding? Does it all come from the federal government?
Ok...
> Federal taxes should be a flat percentage, no deductions, no credits, no so-called "loop holes"... nothing. Every citizen pays the same percentage (whatever it needs to be).
Flat percentage? A flat percentage means that if you earn N times what someone else earns you pay N times as much tax as they do.
But you just said a couple of paragraphs earlier that just because you earn more money that someone else doesn't mean you derive more benefits from the government. If that's going to be the basis of your tax policy shouldn't the tax be a flat amount?
Alice makes $10 million/year, so her tax is $1 million/year.
Bob makes $20 000/year, so his tax is $2 000/year.
Alice and Bob get the same benefits from the government so what is the justification for her tax being 500 times as much as Bob's?
I happen to think a flat percentage without deductions or credits is the best compromise with the people who think everyone else isn't paying their "fair share". If everyone pays this 10% (or whatever) then there's no quibbling about this or that deduction or tax shenanigan (buying art, etc).
The big argument for a progressive rate over a fixed rate is that 10% from someone making $15 000 has a much bigger impact on their lifestyle than 10% from someone making $15 000 000.
With no deductions and credits 10% on $15 000, especially for someone with kids, can mean the tax is coming from money that otherwise would have went toward basic things like food and heat and healthcare.
That's why nearly every serious flat rate tax proposal I've seen includes some kind of exemption so that tax is actually only on the income over that threshold. But once you do that it is now a progressive tax with two brackets.
Well, no, it isn’t. Consider the Oregon/Washington border. An IP could bounce around there. Oregon has zero sales tax so the pre-tax price is literally correct for Oregon residents. Adding estimated tax will be less accurate.
Similarly I could live in unincorporated King County such as White Center and not be subject to Seattle tax while still being subject to King County and Washington tax even though the other side of the street is Seattle.
There’s a sugary drink tax in Seattle. The border is Roxbury. There’s a 7/11 on Roxbury in White Center. Should a 7/11 sandwich board on the Seattle side of the street across from that 7/11 advertise the price with or without that tax?
This is at a merchant that, to say it lightly, has some prior knowledge of me and even has a drop-down menu to let me select the shipping destination out of my saved ones.
So far, that's only used for determining shipping times and availabilities – so why not also display amounts post-tax?
What about a grocery store on the Oregon/Idaho border? Idaho charges sales tax to residents but that can be waived with an Oregon ID. Should this be reflected in the advertised price?
And what about billboard or TV advertisements or even banner ads on a webpage?
I don't care, to be honest. If the merchant knows I can definitely get the cheaper rate without jumping through extra hoops, I don't see a problem in showing the lower price.
> What about a grocery store on the Oregon/Idaho border? Idaho charges sales tax to residents but that can be waived with an Oregon ID. Should this be reflected in the advertised price?
Wow, really? Fascinating/frustrating! There's always one more layer, I guess. Maybe... show two prices then? (I've seen this in duty free stores: Sometimes there's a "with international boarding pass only" price.)
> And what about billboard or TV advertisements or even banner ads on a webpage?
That seems like a case where I'd be fine with the net price being displayed. And yeah, I realize that then all other stores would be screaming unfair discrimination because people will compare the competition's flyer price to the in-store label price and everything...
Maybe the only solution really is to simplify the horror that is US sales tax, and that's obviously never happening. Think of all the jobs in tax preparation and software...
But that discount is contingent on what you might add to your cart in the future and the shipping options you choose. Items can have complex interactions when purchased together. This isn’t just tax. It’s shipping, discounts, gift wrap, and coupons. All of which are taxed and possibly at different rates. You have the luxury of not caring. The merchant doesn’t.
> Wow, really? Fascinating/frustrating!
That’s a tame example. If I buy a car in Oregon where there’s no sales tax I still might have to pay Washington use tax to get plates. This is still the case if I buy the car in Miami, or Toronto. So how does advertising work in that situation?
https://dor.wa.gov/forms-publications/publications-subject/t...
> Maybe the only solution really is to simplify the horror that is US sales tax, and that's obviously never happening. Think of all the jobs in tax preparation and software...
Our complex tax codes are not a conspiracy to create jobs in tax prep. The right to levy our own taxes was a primary motivation of the revolution. In our system of government power is decentralized. That means individual states, counties, and towns can charge their own taxes.
Say my city votes to provide free residential broadband to residents and fund it with a telco tax on private ISP service.
“Simplifying” the tax code by just not allowing the city to do that is literally antithetical to our society. It’s an undermining of the laboratory of democracy.
That may sound hyperbolic but “I find this complexity confusing” just isn’t a compelling argument for kneecapping our democracy.
Make everything as simple as possible but no simpler.
But that's already the case today. I see the price per item, not counting any potential bulk rebates or optional coupon codes, as it's not a priori clear what else I'll buy. On the other hand, sales tax can always be calculated per item sold, as far as I know.
> Say my city votes to provide free residential broadband to residents and fund it with a telco tax on private ISP service.
> “Simplifying” the tax code by just not allowing the city to do that is literally antithetical to our society. It’s an undermining of the laboratory of democracy.
That argument does make some sense to me, but there are many other types of taxes cities and states could levy other than sales tax, which is extraordinarily complicated as you've demonstrated.
> Our complex tax codes are not a conspiracy to create jobs in tax prep. [...] Make everything as simple as possible but no simpler.
I agree, but also given the incentives here, I'd be surprised if that industry wouldn't put up heavy opposition if anybody seriously campaigned to simplify sales tax while avoiding the reduced autonomy/decentralization you mention. I'm all for avoiding Chesterton's Fence, but taking that way of thinking too far can cement the status quo beyond what's useful and resonable in many cases.
That’s fair. I guess I just don’t see the value in displaying the per-item tax when there’s still a bunch of other unknowable charges. But I agree, as far as I understand it would be possible to show the per-item price with sales tax.
But my experience with tax is that it’s always more complicated than you expect, even when you think it’s more complicated than you expect.
Is North America unique in allowing local municipalities to set their own taxes?
> It's really not a crazy concept - estimate it based on geolocation and say "more exact will be available once you enter your address".
That’s exactly what happens now, except the advertised price is actually correct instead of an “estimate”. I have an intuitive sense for local tax. How can I know what method was used to compute this estimated price?
Anyways, all I was saying that it's a solved UX problem, and the reason why you're not getting full price is because A/B testing has shown that when customers see the complete price, they get a shock and less likely to buy the item. This doesn't have much to do with websites caring about some edge cases that they'll somehow won't be able to give out exact price to you. In the worst case, the shopping websites could ask you to enter your postal code and show all prices with the tax included price.
Municipal taxes are not an edgecase in the United States at least. They’re very much the norm, especially in telecommunications.
It's not that NA is the only one susceptible to A/B testing. It's more of a - it's-grey-area-to-illegal to not show full prices outside of NA.
In terms of gaming, hmm… I guess, you could add wrong municipality’s taxes when you show the original price, and switch over at the checkout. But my assumption is that would be deemed illegal, as you are knowingly misleading the customer. Some in person stores still try a bit to mislead you by putting the full price in smaller font (like including the consumption tax), and exclude it over it in the bigger font. But I can still accept that, as I am informed about the full price somehow.
What is displayed for price before you put in postal code? What price do generic banner or TV ads display?
What you describe sounds like the same thing that happens in the US. So what's special about Australia, Japan, and Denmark as you stated earlier?
It actually happens in NA for specific industries as well! If you buy a flight from Google flights without making any additional purchases, you will get the sticker price because airfare display is regulated to a certain degree. Except in Japan and other countries, almost all display prices have to include local taxes. It’s a solved problem, but there’s no political appetite for it in US/Canada because it will hurt the sales.
> Because according to Japanese law, in most of the scenarios, the full price, to your best ability, has to be presented to the potential customer.
I agree, there are a lot of cases where they don't show the full prices. Especially in the recent years when they've been changing the consumption tax rapidly, and allowing shops to have some leeway. But online prices, almost everywhere, include tax. Even Shopify forces JP merchants to display them while selling in the area.
I can totally image a PM somewhere calculate the negative bps for this and call the experiment a failure!
I appreciate this can be done and countries in Europe do it, I just don't see how this is any better at all than status quo:
* Current State: we all know the quoted price doesn't include sales tax, which will be added to make the final price in checkout after we enter our address.
* Final State: we all know the quoted price will likely change during checkout, when we see the final price after we enter our address.
So we make things more complicated for vendors, and we make it not just acceptable but required that vendors use our IP addresses for geolocation, only to give us a maybe-right-maybe-wrong final price. Does anyone feel scammed by not having tax included on the price in the listings of Macy's online store?
I'm not sure why one wouldn't want to know the real price before the checkout. It's a bit baffling to me. It could be a cultural thing as well, then I guess, there isn't really a right or wrong way of looking at it.
Sure, in a world where the actual sticker price is displayed. Do you believe this will remain true when customers have to add items to the cart to get the “real” price?
It's just that, in the list of things I'd like fixed about the world, that's about dead last.
When you're used to sales tax being added at the register, it's not an inconvenience. Who cares.
Because you'd never actually know if it's the final real price or not until you entered your address! That's the entire premise of my objection, was that not clear?
If we want to talk about displaying final price for my confirmed shipping address then yeah, I'm all in for that.
Finding out your teenage daughter is pregnant based on her shopping is easy. It’s actually harder not to notice. “Customers like you also bought” is an effective algorithm because people are mostly the same. Pregnancy has some very specific and unique needs which create a strong signal.
Nobody is in a shady back room poring over chat logs and GPS coordinates looking for pregnant teenagers. It just falls out of the sysem.
That said, I DO agree that hidden facility/resort/etc. fees and the like should go. For years, there was a conference center restoration fee tacked onto hotels all over NYC even the project wasn't even approved. Rental cars at airports are also a nightmare. There is no reason for them.
Usually (across the world and across history) the power of taxation is very jealously guarded, and local government is usually only allowed to gather a limited range of taxes. Historically sovereigns have treated attempts by subordinates to raise their own taxes as tantamount to treason.
You haven't given any reason why not.
And sales tax is one of a limited range of taxes.
You guys can think of lots of reasons to justify why you can't do things like the rest of the civilized world does, be it prices and taxes, medical insurance or something else. The US is not some sprcial snowflake country.
It was never the norm that websites never asked for your shipping address or zipcode before allowing shopping. That's really silly.
Meanwhile, 99% of people will see the price they can expect to pay.
That seems like terrible advice. Oh, the price is $X. And once you've entered all your info "just kidding." I'd much rather know there are some things not included up-front if they're not reasonably factored in.
Or better yet, give municipalities an incentive to stop layering a kinds of taxes. Just have a VAT and be done with it.
Everyone is an edge case in some form. You, included.
Just have a VAT and be done with it.
This just illustrates that you don't understand the that taxes have multiple purposes, and why taxes are the way they are. Attend a few city council meetings.
I bet that's wrong, and that a huge chunk of shopping is from cell phones that usually have an effectively random IP when they're not at their home location.
Switching our tax regime to VATs, effectively flattening 13,000+ sales tax jurisdictions down to 50, would be a monumental undertaking involving rethinking and reorganizing financing of literally everything below the federal level. And in the end it would solve a problem that is at best a minor annoyance to most Americans.
The juice ain't worth the squeeze.
Not really, no.
Zip codes also aren't great either. A single zip code can cover many different tax jurisdictions, even different states.
Mind you, I'm all for more up-front transparency in general, especially to the degree that comparison-shopping is inconsistent to the degree it displays or doesn't display often significant add-ons.
In some areas, sales tax is actual multiple taxes from different overlapping jurisdictions: state, county, city, and sometimes special tax district. ZIP codes don't align with any of these, so you need to know exactly where the buyer is in order to properly calculate sales tax.
There are places where adjacent addresses in the same ZIP code have different sales tax rates.
There's probably a Things Developers Believe About ZIP Codes list out there somewhere.
Good for me, my zipcode is the Walmart of zip codes. No so good for people who's zip code is the Whole Foods of zip codes.
But I guess that would outside FTC jurisdiction?
Most online shops have a good estimate of your location based on IP. And already use it to estimate shopping costs, right?
One for in-person shopping (like VAT) -- you pay the tax according to local rates, but it's factored in already.
one for online shopping, ("E-VAT") -- you pay a national rate tax and the seller is responsible for paying gross sales based on that percentage to the state and the rest goes to the IRS.
Problem comes with the Sin Taxes that have been established. For instance, in Seattle, sugared drinks MAY incur a tax depending on what kind of store you bought it from (e.g. the normal costco has to tax it but the business costco doesn't), but that doesn't affect some folks and then there's tax-exempt organizations like churches that can have their sales tax waived and then there's states where sales taxes are a majority of the income is from sales tax but only if you're local and
oh god it gets bad.
God I wish this applied to buying cars as well
“Oh, sorry, looks like we’d already applied the undercoat to your car.”
“Ah, thanks!”
“That’s an extra $400 charge.”
“I’m not paying for it. I didn’t want it. You can have it back if you want.”
This is not as much of an upper hand as you think it is, often these shenanigans happen after sitting at the dealer for a couple hours while they do whatever it is they do. Do you value your time so little that you'll just walk out of a transaction over less than a 1% difference in cost?
The dealer knows how to play this game way better than you, if you walk into a dealership without having a plan to score a deal then you already lost
And also-freaking-lutely would I walk instead of eating a BS charge. Sometimes it really is the principle of the thing. My principle is I’m not paying a penny for something I didn’t ask for. A dealership I’d be caught dead doing business with will eat the bogus charges instead of losing a customer forever. Conversely, next time I need a Toyota, I have the business card of the guy I’ll buy it from and he doesn’t even know it yet. He treated me well last time and his investment in that deal will keep paying him back.
> rings up as $121.41
> "Wow, I wasn't *highly aware* that the sales tax rate here where I live was 7.83%, thanks for helping me out by putting the wrong price on the sticker, shopkeep. Now I can calculate the actual price of things in your store, something I couldn't do before – I'll simply multiply every sticker price by 1.0783 in my head on the fly. What a great 'upside'!"
Until then, all you can do is quote a price.
Welcome to reality, kid.
If you're buying it for resale, you don't owe tax. How do you put that on a price tag?
There's use tax. Depending on what you use a product you buy for, you might owe a different tax rate. How do you get a final price out of that?
You don't. When you quote a price, it's a quote.