Whenever I travel overseas I never accumulate a “ridiculous” number of coins in my pocket, because I actually spend them. Because unlike American coins they’re actually worth enough to buy things with. That’s why I want dollar coins.
If the smallest coin was $5, and we eliminated all other coins and the $1 bill we’d have currency about like the USA had in 1880. Which worked fine.
Seriously, it’s about time to simply stop minting or printing cash. Consign that useless junk to the ash-heap of history.
And $2 coins. I think that is needed if we get rid of the dollar bill. A $2 coin is useful.
Some late-night pundit claimed that IKEA was started when Sweden realized it had a huge surplus of Allen Wrenches.
I like to “travel light”. Literally. I carry a house key, driver’s license, insurance cards and a credit card, and a couple of banknotes. If I get more than a few coins, they go in the next tip jar I see. So I’d rather have lightweight George Washingtons folded in my pocket, than a handful of Sacajaweas.
actually, that happened in Cleveland last year. Woman went to Dollar store, and when cashier told her price with tax, woman argued price was 99 cents; when the cashier said the difference was tax, the woman disagreed and said the store was ripping her off. I can’t believe the woman had never experienced this before, unless she was trying to gameit.
That’s me too. I don’t even bother with the insurance cards; I’ve got images of them in my phone. I used to have a combo lock on my front door so no keys unless I was driving. Which I often wasn’t. Now I’m stuck w one itty bitty e-fob to open my front door.
The card carrier on the back of my phone has my DL, my main credit card, two $20s and a $100, and that’s it. I can travel the US with just that. To travel the world just add a passport. Everything else I might need is in my phone.
In Ohio food is taxed if you eat in the restaurant but is not taxed if you carry out. Beverages are always taxed.
Then you can have two columns in the menu - one for sit-down prices, and one for take-out prices.
That’s interesting. In Michigan, all prepared food is taxed, even if it’s obviously for take out because you’re buying it in a grocery store. At least, hot food. I suspect that something like potato salad would also be taxed, but I don’t eat any cold prepared foods so I don’t have any first-hand experience.
Absolutely standard in Montreal and presumably in the rest of Canada. Not only doesn’t the card leave your site, it doesn’t leave your possession. They bring you a hand-held machine, with your bill entered. You insert your card, are prompted to add a tip, enter your PIN and the machine grinds away for a few seconds, then the machine prompts you to remove your card and it prints out the receipt.
My pet peeve is that no one here (Canada or US) packages things like mustard or mayonnaise in toothpaste type tubes. Ever so much more convenient.
I was going to contest this statement until I checked and saw that every such product at Cost Plus World Market is imported.
Red Robin is the only place I frequent that has on-the-table check-out terminals. They need to be everywhere.
Those I don’t care for. IMO it’s all part of transitioning sit-down full service restaurants to being much more self-service. As in
Seat yourself, pull up the menu on the tabletop device, order on the device, see your food & drink delivered to the table by the one person you’ll see one time, eat, pay on the device, and leave. Wherein phase 2 will be that when your food & drink is ready at the kitchen window, the device will buzz then you’ll go retrieve it yourself.
That’s not an experience I want.
I’m OK w the fast-food process. For fast food. I don’t even like the idea of runners, dedicated people to bring the food & drink who are separate from the waitstaff who take orders, deliver the bill, and that’s it. I want one individual worker who is responsible for, and paid for, my end-to-end service experience.
ISTM the majority of national chain restaurants, even fairly nice ones, have transitioned to the runner system. Not progress IMO.
And I’ve heard merchants here in Canada say that adding the tax at the till is honest labelling.
« Our price is $9.95. The add-on is the government. Got a problem with the add-on, talk to the government. »
The political theory on which this is based is that taxes shouldn’t be hidden. Taxpayers should know when they are paying a tax.
But I’m not the one paying the tax - the store is. I don’t care about the store’s expenses. In fact, if retailers are paying too many taxes on my purchase, they should talk to the government. They have more power than consumers do, anyway.
That’s not how it works in Canada. A sales tax is a tax on the purchaser, a direct tax.
Provincial taxes are required to be direct. They can’t be charged on the merchant, to be passed on in the price to purchasers. If a tax were structured that way, it would be unconstitutional.
I’m not in love with the idea of adding tax to the listed price - but I know it won’t benefit customers. Let’s say a store would price a shirt at $10 plus tax - but “plus tax” pricing isn’t allowed . So the store figures out what the highest tax would be in the area from which they draw their customers and advertise - which may be national. Maybe the highest tax rate is 10%, so they price the shirt at $11. That’s not good for me, because in the jurisdiction where I live, there is no sales tax on individual clothing items priced under $110 Including taxes in the price will almost always raise the price I pay except in very local stores that have no locations outside that jurisdiction. It’s not a coincidence that the few places I know that post “tax included” prices don’t advertise prices at all - stadia and venues and theme parks don’t advertise the prices at their concession stands.
It doesn’t work that way in the US either - not every purchaser pays sales tax. Tax-exempt organizations don’t, resellers don’t and under certain circumstances , residents of states without a sales tax don’t pay tax on items bought in a state with sales tax . And conversely , if I buy something in a state without sales tax and bring it home to NY, I owe “use tax” . The only difference is who collects the tax - the store collects sales tax while I pay use tax directly to the state.
So every time you make a purchase, you have to mail a check to the government?
Well, when you buy items out of state and aren’t charged the appropriate tax, yes you are supposed to calculate and pay that on your tax returns.