This is totally separate from junk fees, which are controlled by the seller.
Sales tax exclusive is a common complaint from visiting Europeans. It is seldom an issue for Americans because most aren’t paying with exact change or calculating budgets to the penny. Go to low-income neighbourhoods, where incomes are closer to those in Europe, and you’ll find tax-inclusive pricing.
This is a pretty funny but largely ignorant dig at Europeans.
Every country I've ever been to except the US includes VAT in their prices and I've been to over 30. It's not just a European thing but a world thing, where the US once again is the odd one out.
I agree. That doesn’t make it an issue.
It also doesn’t negate that the U.S. is the odd one out on (a) income and (b) local government. Those are the factors, together with less cash use (though this bucket is less exclusive), behind the phenomenon. My life would literally not change in any tangible way for having keeping menus and price stickers up to date; if another store gave me better service for forgoing that work, I’d probably notice that first.
Put another way: I’ve travelled a lot in the world, and I genuinely hadn’t noticed tax-inclusive pricing until a German friend pointed it out in Frankfurt.
Transparent pricing is a fundamental necessity for the free market.
More importantly not having puts an additional burden on those with smaller incomes (they most certainly also exist in the US).
How many tax regimes do they contain within themselves on account of local governments?
I’m not saying America can’t do it. I’m saying we don’t care to. This is literally a non-issue for most Americans. I understand the aesthetic preference. But it’s such a strange hill to die on.
> Transparent pricing is a fundamental necessity for the free market
Transparent pricing doesn’t mean pricing with no math.
Junk fees, on the other hand, are not transparent and not set by the state. (Though I haven’t yet seen the business lobby try to distract by shifting the debate to tax-inclusive pricing, which would be admittedly clever.)
Well, you’re not used to being able to rely on prices being accurate. Surely if you’re used to accurate prices you might be paying more attention if suddenly they’re no longer correct.
Only for local purchases, at least in Europe. In fact for non-local purchases, the US is much simpler.
I am, right now, in Italy, ordering an item from Germany, and it priced at N euros "plus 19% VAT". Because receiving countries differ in amount of VAT, vendors outside those countries cannot include it in their prices.
But it's "0% VAT" shipping to US -- that is, the primary country where you pay the vendor exactly what's stated is the US.
The US is one of the counties where the value that is duty free is high, and as I understand it, there’s no tax collection in advance. Most/all purchases will be 0% tax from the vendor side, but you are still responsible for assessing and collecting this tax yourself.
This is a good illustration of valid trade offs between two cultures. I find it absurd to have to enter my address before even being shown pricing (let alone deciding to purchase). You, on the other hand, prefer all-in pricing.
These are both reasonable takes! They’re just different.
Moreover, most of the websites change the location based on IP addresses anyway.
In America, you would. Various municipal and county lines can create separate sales tax obligations based on address. Even barring that, I would find it intrusive and absurd for someone to demand my state of residence prior to even being shown price. (My IP address only loosely correlates with my residence.)
But again, that’s a preference. One most Americans share. Multiple equilibria.
They can and they do; smaller shops who don't sell as much abroad use their country VAT while larger ones include buyer country VAT. Works fine.
I think this is because of the minimum turnover for VAT[0] at least on paper, but there are places obviously making a lot more that just don’t bother with it, so there is probably a lot of adventurous accounting as well.
Lovely place, you should add it to your 30+.
[0]: https://www.aseanbriefing.com/news/a-guide-to-taxation-in-th...
I know it's true -- when I loved in SF the fact that I couldn't tell what things cost just made me give up looking at the price altogether :)
I just picked things in safeway and payed without even listening to what the amount charged was...
But it's probably a bad idea to encourage this kind of behavior.
If you want the free market to work, you'll need engaged customers who at-least reads the price tag.
I'm sorry that it's so hard for you to multiply by 1.1
12:00 - after a delightful morning checking out the history of genocide in North America, you decide to drive the Turquoise Trail (NM14), a national scenic byway, south to Albuquerque. You stop to wander and eat lunch in Madrid, NM. What's the sales tax rate? Wrong, you're no longer in the city of Santa Fe, but Santa Fe county.
17:00 - you arrive in Albuquerque and go to buy something at a regular store. What's the sales tax rate? Ah, now you're getting it: you don't know, because now you're in Bernalillo County, NM.
There are around 15-20 different tax rates in my metro area, between state, regional (multiple county metropolitan council), county, and city specific taxes.
From the central city area, you can reach all of the 15-20 different sales tax rate areas within 30-45 minutes.
There are tax regimes where how much of an item you buy changes the calculated tax.
> the history of genocide in North America
Ah, I see where you're coming from.
You almost certainly do not.
If the sales tax rate ends being less than 10%, it’s money saved. If it ends up being more than 10%, that would be my new multiplier that I’d use as baseline.
If you’re that price sensitive, you can probably save a lot more money by just visiting five to ten stores to comparison shop for every item since you can likely save far more than one percent that way.
Or just fork over the extra penny per dollar when you visit Santa Fe the city
I didn't think the point was penny-saving. It was knowing what the final price will be.
I also didn't really get the GP's point that just assuming a rate of 10% is a good enough estimate, so there's also that.