Hacker News Reader

Comment by stutstev | Hacker News Reader

Considering New Hampshire’s lack of sales tax, I’m patiently waiting for Micro Center to establish a new presence in Nashua or Salem. The Cambridge location, while personally cherished, isn’t that accessible by car because of Boston’s stress-induced car traffic congestion. Even on foot, getting to the store is still a bit of a journey. Also, let’s not forget Massachusetts’ 6.25% sales tax.

In New Hampshire, I am positive Micro Center would attract customers from all over New England and make an absolute killing from sales, potentially overshadowing their Cambridge profits. I would never shop online or in Cambridge for hardware again. But, I’m sure they wish not to jeopardize the Cambridge store or their MIT and Boston tech hobbyist clientele. Otherwise, I am surprised they have not yet acted upon this idea.

But, a man can dream!

View on HN

Comments like this remind me I might be the only person in Massachusetts honestly calculating my use tax for my tax return every year.

Probably one of the only people in the country.

I have a friend in RI that does it.

Google maps says Salem is 40min+ from Cambridge, and Nashua is 50min+ from Cambridge, and add another 10min to 20min from other parts of Boston.

Each minute of driving costs at least $0.67 (from IRS), excluding increased morbidity and mortality risks (injury from car collisions is the top health risk for most Americans).

So even using $0.50 per minute of driving, if you are only going to NH to evade sales tax, that is 80min*$0.50cents = $40. $40/0.0625 =$640.

So the first $640 of the purchase doesn't even save you any money (even more for most Bostonians further than Cambridge), and it costs you 1 to 2 hours of your life driving back and forth. If you value your leisure time at at least $100 per hour, then you're looking at spending at least $2,200 for the tax evasion to start paying off.

I'm just positing why Microcenter will not open a NH location anytime soon, because most of its customers (who are in Boston metro) won't find that it pays off to travel to NH.

Tax free weekends exist in MA as well, yet a lot of people still travel across the state line to buy tax free items like booze.

It's not always logical, but sometimes you find yourself outside of the city or heading north to be wilderness and the value prop changes if you're already heading that way.

I agree that MC won't open one here, as we can't even get an IKEA closer than Stoughton.

My favorite store like this is the Apple Store in the pheasant Lane mall - the parking lot is in Massachusetts, stores are in NH.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com