Don't you get fed up with added costs?

[StinkyBurrito]

@StinkyBurrito

Would you pay a differing amount for the same item in Liverpool vs. Manchester or Munich vs. Bern?

I just noticed that Bern is not in Germany… I meant to compare two cities within a single country by mentioning Munich vs. Berlin. :smack:

But I think this is basically the answer to the tax question. Taxes vary everywhere you go around here. It would be very difficult for merchants who operate more than one location otherwise.

[Freddy_the_Pig]

@footballisplayedwithyourfeet

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.

Nope, I want taxes as a separate line item. I want every tax to be as visible and painful as possible, so that people know exactly how much they are paying.

I wish we didn’t have income tax withholding. I wish people had to send a check for the full amount to the IRS every April. And, I wish people had to send a check to the Social Security Adminstration every year for both the employee and the employer share of the social security tax. Feel the pain, man. Know how much it costs.

[Giles]

There are some cases where the same product in the same store may or may not have sales tax added.
(1) In Ohio, food bought to eat off the premises is free of sales tax. So if I go to a restaurant and eat a meal there, I pay sales tax, but if I go to the same restaurant and get take-out, I don’t pay sales tax.
(2) Also here, charities don’t pay sales tax. So if I work for a charity, go down to the local office supply store, and give them a sales tax exemption when I buy stuff there, I (or to be precise the charity) doesn’t pay the sales tax that I would pay if I bought the same stuff for personal use.

So it does make sense for sales tax not to be included in the quoted price.

[Anne_Neville]

No. Things cost some random amount more than the price on the price tag. I’m used to that. I hardly even notice it any more.

@ZipperJJ

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.

I only pay attention to the part of the bill that says “Pay this amount”. Unless it’s unusually high- then I might look at the numbers dialed.

[footballisplayedwithyourfeet]

Ok, a quick round up. It seems to me most responses come down to: I like to know how much tax I pay; taxes differ per region (or service); and I don’t notice anymore/it has been like this forever.

This all makes sense, but must say it is kind of annoying if you are used to literally paying what the sticker says. Just one of these fun little things about traveling

[Martini_Enfield]

@Baracus

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’m being charged whatever sum of money has to come out of my wallet or bank account to acquire the advertised good or service. I don’t care who is charging me what percentage of that, I just want the all-inclusive bottom-line total displayed on the item so I can work out how much it’s going to cost me without having to do mental gymnastics.

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’d be willing to bet most people don’t notice or care. The tax component of sales is noted on receipts here (“This sale contains GST of $X.xx”) but no-one except accountants pays the slightest bit of attention to it, as the tax is built into the price. If a Widget is advertised as being 9.99, that's all you have to pay for it, end of story. The fact .99c of that is GST is of no interest to the average consumer here.

[Anne_Neville]

@footballisplayedwithyourfeet

This all makes sense, but must say it is kind of annoying if you are used to literally paying what the sticker says. Just one of these fun little things about traveling

I guess it would. When I’m traveling, though, I usually don’t know how much I’m paying for anything anyway, since the price isn’t in dollars and I can’t do the math in my head to convert to dollars.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

@iamthewalrus_3

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.

The problem is that most retail outlets operate in multiple counties, if not multiple states. Keeping separate databases for pricing on your entire inventory would be a major pain in the ass, not to mention a significant added cost. When I last worked in retail, I managed a sunglass store. All 140-something stores nationwide were stocked from one warehouse in Arizona- and products came pre-priced. Having to print a specific label for every single item based on where it was going as well as what it was would be… problematic. Not to mention the fact that counties change their sales taxes constantly.

Having had tons of British customers, I can say that the majority either don’t mind the “hidden” sales tax, or don’t mention it. Usually, the people that brought it up usually did so to explain that they’d forgotten about it, which is why they were holding out $8 too little, or whatever.

@villa

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…

VAT is hardly “hidden”. Everyone knows it’s there. If anything, taxes are more “hidden” over here- sure, you know how much is going to the county and/or state, but who the hell has any idea what the federal import tariff on an iPod is?

I don’t understand why people are so dead-set against state income taxes either. Of course, where I live, we have sales tax instead of income tax to ensure we gouge tourists as much as possible.

[Acsenray]

@anu-la1979

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.

(Gulp) Okay, did you mean to get me thinking about your great twat?

[put_down_the_sabre]

@smiling_bandit

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.

I don’t think that counts as good tipping.

pdts