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Comment by xienze | Hacker News Reader

But do they have the same kind of state and local sales tax rules that we do? Again, _you can't know the price to display if you don't know where exactly in the country the package is going_. It is not possible to display the "final price" in US online stores ahead of checkout unless the user is already logged in AND the shipping address is the same as where the user lives.

The juice is not worth the squeeze for online retailers. Users are used to seeing the final amount at checkout and you know, it's really not that hard to mentally estimate <price of thing I'm buying plus 10%> (which is actually usually an overestimate).

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That's an argument for fixing the rules. As functional rules in this regard are clearly possible to create.

The EU has a similar smattering of disparate jurisdictions (with varying VAT rates) just like the US does.

Googling says 27 tax jurisdictions in the EU versus over 13000 in the US. Again, not quite as simple as you're making it out to be. And for what? Making the checkout process slightly more convenient for people who lack the mental ability to estimate their total?

> Googling says 27 tax jurisdictions in the EU versus over 13000 in the US.

Cool, great place to start. Let's fix that. Both have similar land mass, similar populations, similar balance of federal-ish and state-ish and local-ish governance, similar cultures, etc.

> And for what? Making the checkout process slightly more convenient for people who lack the mental ability to estimate their total?

Surely handling 13k tax jurisdictions is expensive for businesses and consumers on many levels?

what are the unintended concecuences of your plan? Until you figure themout don't propose a change as it might be overall worse.

Proposal: Brick-and-mortar stores, at least, should have to list in-store prices inclusive of tax.

Unintended consequences: None?

Forcing brick-and-mortar stores to show a higher price including tax than that shown by online stores seems like it would have some unintended consequences. It would likely push more people towards online purchases even if the final price is identical.

I deliberately browse AirBnB's Australian version because it tells me the actual cost of the listing, inclusive of tax and fees.

Prices are already quite different between online and in-person shopping.

For a computer what is the difference between 27 and 13000?

There are a lot of people who cannot calculate what 10% more equals to. You mentioned that's an estimate and often not correct, so even if you do the calculation, there's a good chance it's wrong. A lot of people are on a budget and what is a rounding error to you, could be the difference between being able to afford it or not for them.

In Germany different tax rates apply to items that you need to survive such as food and other goods. It can be difficult to know which rate applies to a product. The good thing is you don't need to know because the total price is displayed

In the EU, when I go to some online shop it first lets me chooose my language (and country), then it displays all the prices with the correct VAT amount.

You in the US keep saying "we are so special, so it is impossible to change things for the better in any way". While other countries also have complex rules for similar things yet they still manage to provide a better experience for shoppers, citizens, sick people - everyone.

need to get DOGE on it.

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