Inspired by the thread on bad tippers, I was wondering whether you US dopers don’t get fed up with having all these (voluntary or not) surcharges on the price that is given on the price tag.
First of all, I’m aware there are differences between states, stores etc. and this is entirely based on my limited experince of some parts of the US (NY, California, Hawai and some other western states).
However, I really found it annoying that taxes aren’t incorporated in the price, but added later on and felt the same way about tipping.
I usually tip a bit when going out to Diner here in Europe, but it is comforting to know it is not the staff’s main source of income and it certainly isn’t scrutinised as closely as is depicted in the previously mentioned thread. Always needing to do your math, scared of pissing people of, why raise the price a bit and give the staff a reasonable income. Good service will still get you a bit extra, but a waitress’ lifelyhood will not depend on it.
The same with the tax thing. Everyone will have to pay the taxes anyway - at least at the chekout counter - so why make things more difficult?
I’m sure many people will disagree and have some brilliant insights on why the current state of affairs is preferable, please enlighten me.
I basically never think about it. It’s always been that way as far as I’ve been concerned, and it’s that way in every US state I visit. Sure, it results in me tipping the heck out of a waiter on trips out of the country, but it still feels like “normal” to me and if it makes a waiter’s day there, that’s cool with me. For purchases, I always “round up” prices when estimating how much I’ll be spending at the checkout, so that feels pretty normal too. It’s really just a non-issue to me because it feels natural and rarely causes me any problems.
Tipping is only ever annoying to me if I’m paying in cash, but that’s pretty rare these days. I can do the rough math pretty quickly, and while I usually tip 15% or so, I do raise or lower it for particularly good or bad service. It probably helps that I’m used to doing the same math do figure out HST back in Nova Scotia to guess the actual prices of things. (Of course, now I can’t figure out sales tax easily. 15% I’m used to–6 or 7%, not so much)
I’m just glad I never really had to deal with the GST/PST stuff. I’m sure that was fun :dubious:
Do your sales taxes in Europe vary from region to region like they do from county to county in the States? For instance, here in the States, you can drive down the highway and expect to pay a different amount for a hamburger at pretty much every McDonalds you would come across due to the differing taxes. Would you pay a differing amount for the same item in Liverpool vs. Manchester or Munich vs. Bern?
If not, I think that is the reasoning for the differing system about adding taxes to the price. If you do it the same way as us, how do you deal with things like advertising the prices over the whole country?
I am with you on the tipping thing - that is just a stupid system.
The last time I used a calculator when shopping was when I was a poor college student, and the ten dollars in my wallet was literally all I had to spend.
Now that I’m a fully employed grown-up, my finances aren’t so tight that I can’t allow for the expected tax and tip. If I buy something priced at $19.99, I know it’s really going to be probably $21 and change. Big whoop. Same with eating out. Lots of times I don’t even look at how much my entree is, or tally up how much for salad + soup + entree + drink + dessert. I don’t ask the server how much is the price of my drink before I order, and then add on tax and tip and decide whether I can afford it or whether it’s reasonable.
I do know, however, that a slice & salad for two at Rocky Rococo’s will be about $12 tops, while dinner at the nice pizza place in town will be about $40 with tax and tip (we get pasta because we don’t care for their thin-crust-only). If we’re feeling broke, then we go someplace cheap rather than expensive.
We generally tip around 20% because (1) we’ve both worked in restaurants and (2) the math is easy. I’m not “scared of pissing people off” by leaving a small tip because when we do (which is rare), there’s a reason.
Tax & tip are just expected expenses, and IMHO you’ve gotta be really broke and/or really cheap to get worked up about them.
I think sales tax is pretty much regulated on the national level, so national advertising campaign are possible without getting in trouble about the taxes (we pay 19% here in the Netehrlands by the way, so the 6/7 really is very chape for us)
Tax and Tip don’t bother me nearly as much as the fees they won’t tell you about.
Buy a ticketmaster ticket…you don’t find out what the surcharge is until after you select your seat(and the seats are segragated by price level), nor what the ordering fee is until you get to the last step before actually ordering.
Or how about phone service? AT&T has a U-verse service, but they only quote you the base rate with no taxes or fees. They know damn well what they are, and where you live, because they ask you wehre you live up front to see if you qualify. They know exactly what the rates are in your area, but they frakking WILL NOT TELL YOU what they are. they jsut say “a typical estimate is about $10”
The one of theirs that really pissed me off was the options for getting the physical tickets–they charge you $2 to print them off at home The only free option was standard mail, and some of them were pretty pricey. I’m paying you for the tickets, and you want me to pay more to actually get the tickets? It would be like Pizza Hut charging you to pick up your order.
I live in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, which has a 7.25% sales tax rate. Adjoining North Carolina counties have 6.75% sales tax rates. Adjoining South Carolina counties have 7% sales tax rates. I really don’t think advertisers in the Charlotte MSA want to print three prices in all their ads.
What I hate buying the most is airline tickets. The “ticket” cost fails to incorporate all kinds of fees and extra charges. I know *why *the airlines do it, but it does not fail to piss me off anyway.
There’s one concert venue in my area that does not sell ticket through Ticketmaster, and theta’s the only place I’ll go. If a band I like is playing elsewhere, that’s just too damn bad.
9.99 sounds and looks a lot cheaper than $10.76. People will buy more of the 9.99 product even if you specifically state that $10.76 comes with tax included.
Let’s say a product sells for $10 and a tax is 7.5%. Now, a store damn well knows what the tax is and can just as easily put down $10.75 (tax included). But then the city council proposes and the city votes for that 1/8 cent sales tax for the new community college. Now it’s no longer $10.00 + .75. So the store has two options: a) change all their signs to reflect this new tax even though their prices haven’t actually increased or b) not do anything to the price which means it’s no longer a 1/8 cent tax on consumers, it’s a 1/8 cent tax on the store!
It bothers me because it is in many cases blatant false advertising, and because the information is readily available and could easily be provided, but isn’t. Unless you’re on a mobile selling platform that goes from one place to another with different taxes, there’s no reason not to display the actual price of something on the shelves/menu. If the computer that rings up the total knows what things cost, then the computer that prints out the labels can know what they cost, too.
Actually, I love tipping. It’s fantastic. Yeah, if you’re just cruising through it doesn’t matter much, but I mostly eat at a couple of inexpensive Mexican restaurants. Or, in other words, the staff knows me personally. I come by a couple times a week and mostly eat from 2-3 menu items (I’ve tried everything, so I stick to my favorites). They know me, what I like, and how I like it. That’s what tipping gives me. And even when I’m a stranger, the waitstaff wants me to be pleased with service. I might be a bad tipper, in which case they’ve lost only a little effort. But if I’m a good tipper (and I usually tip a little over 15%), they clean up.
I have not encountered that in Europe. The waitstaff, if not outright rude, is at least apathetic. My tip is irrelevant; they have no stake in the sale.
But the price on the shelf is the price that the store is charging you. It is the city/state that is charging you the tax.
I think having the tax added on after also helps keep people mindful of how much tax they are actually paying. Taxes are built into gas prices and a lot of people probably have no idea what a big chunk of the price is going to Uncle Sam.
I could be happy in a world without tipping, but tipping as added cost is not something that annoys me.
Taxes on purchases don’t generally bother me.
Buying airline tickets on-line for $200 which magically turns into $240 when they add in all the fees DOES bother me. Some of it is because the hidden costs are often enough to bump the ticket price up a notch on the scale in my head, but most of the annoyance comes from fees which increase all ticket prices by mostly the same amount–so that $900 ticket I declined to buy would have turned into $950, while my more afforable ticked went from $200 to $240.
On the American Airlines website the price they quote you for the tickets does include all the airport and other fees, but you have to look closely (and go to another page) to find out about the extra fee for checking a bag.
I hate it when you order some pizza and get a price from the dude over the phone, and collect money from everyone (including the tip - I’m not against tipping) then the delivery guy shows up and you’re two dollars short because the asshat on the phone forgot to tell you there’s a $2 delivery charge. Delivery charge = whatever, but forgetting to add it in = not cool.
Phone taxes are the worst. I have no idea what the cost of my actual landline and cell phone plans are - they’re buried under taxes.
One day I had a really good salesman come by from the phone company who asked me what I’m paying now. I said something like $45. He said he could sell me a package with MORE features for LESS money! Super, sign me up! Fooled the fuck out of me…it ended up costing $10 more per month after taxes.
I guess I just accept it as part of life. My main discretionary tips (to distinguish from ones helpfully added on for me by a corporation) are the hair stylist, waxist and for servers at restaurants. For the stylist and twat waxer, especially the latter, I don’t resent it at all because they do such a great job. The restaurants I don’t really notice but that’s because I don’t eat at Charlie Trotters or the like-I mostly go out for ethnic food, of which the most expensive would be sushi.
I’d find it a lot more annoying if I had to travel a lot, as I don’t tend to carry cash and I feel like I have to tip constantly while travelling-whether it’s in the US or somewhere else. For instance, when we were in Belize it seemed like we literally tipped every one at the resort, every tour operator etc. etc…
Your second point make sense, and I think the fact that taxes change more often (both over time and over regions) in the US means that it is less feasible to include the tax.
The first point I know is not an issue. South Africa has a 14% VAT, which is always included in the price. But they still do the R9.99 thing, its just that R9.99 includes the tax.
As a Brit living in the US, I like the fact that sales tax isn’t included in the sticker price. It reminds me each time how much is going to the government. VAT I always found to be a “hidden” tax back in the UK - 17.5% added on to any “non-essential” purchase?
Also, when I lived in Tennessee, which has no state income tax, I thought it was a good lesson for people who would earn minimal incomes, whereby they would have paid next to nothing in state income tax, yet every year would vote against it. Which means they ended up paying 8% (from memory) on their food purchases, and 9% on everything else. Now THAT’s not regressive…
The only free option was standard mail, and some of them were pretty pricey. I’m paying you for the tickets, and you want me to pay more to actually get the tickets? It would be like Pizza Hut charging you to pick up your order.