I see the same arguments in this thread as I can see in the imperial vs metric thread.
In essence it seems to boil down to “we are used to it, and even if a new system is better I am too scared to change”
For me I may not be well enough trained, or have enough practice, but all I want to see when I buy something is the final cost not some misleading lower cost.
National advertising is not so hard to solve, so long as the actual price is displayed at the regional level then go to it.
Which does of course raise another issue - should the power to set things like sales tax be taken away from state governments and only reside with the actual US govt?
Coming from a (geographically) small country its always surprising to me that (for example) you need to sit for the bar in each state, or each state having their own drivers licence and registration plates - not to mention variations in traffic law.
Building codes and property tax not so much though…
Actually, here’s a funny story about this, and actually quite illustrative:
(for our foreign dopers): Subway is a fast-food company that sells sandwiches. They have found great success in the past 10 years or so as the fast-food franchise of choice as people have become too prestigious for McDonalds and too blinded by notions that their sandwiches are far healthier than a big mac. They had a 300 pound turd by the name of Jared as the anchorman of an ad campaign where it was alleged that he dropped like 20 waist sizes on his own accord, solely by eating Subway for like every meal for 6 months straight.
Anyways, they have a promotion (with a catchy jingle) for their “footlong” subs. “Five dollar foot longs” - complete with phallic references and all that good stuff that makes for a winning ad campaign.
Except in Alaska. The jingle there is “Six dollar foot longs”.
Just so long as you don’t go on thinking that the “all inclusive pricing” regime has as many objective reasons for use as the metric system. There is no rational or reasoned basis for the all-inclusive pricing, wheras the metric system has many good reasons for its existence. Your attempt to analogize the two is not fooling anyone into thinking that the all-inclusive system is objectively better.
As for sales taxation being federalized - while we do have a few federal excise taxes here and there, it would be a total clusterf*** if you had to federalize the collection of taxes because there would be resultant (massive) politicization of which localities received how much in tax revenue. If you are just talking about setting a national sales tax level but that is collected locally and kept locally, then many states without sales taxes would get pissed off at you.
Actually I don’t really have an opinion on the matter (not enough knowledge to even come close) nor any ideas on the difficulties in implementation other than a generic :dubious: about the whole practise.
Its kinda foreign (and weird) to me that if I were to spend five or six hours driving in the same country, I can conceivably see two or three different prices for the same item becasue of sales taxes.
That’s not an advertisement, it’s a quote. And even with a quote you don’t always get the all-in price until the end, particularly if you’re using a flexible dates type search (see Delta for an example). I’m certainly happy to see more airlines and online travel agencies showing the all-in price, though, especially with international flights where the taxes and fees are sometimes more than the base price of the ticket.
How does this support your argument in any way? What good does it do to have the all-inclusive price posted inside on the menu, when the pre-tax price is posted on a huge advertisement outside the store? Isn’t your whole argument based on the consumer being “tricked” by an advertisement? Once the person is in the store, the adverstisement has already done its job; it got your ass into the store. Sucker.
It must be said that in some jurisdictions, sales tax paid by a business for a good or service can be deductible/offset somehow, depending on who is buying the good or service. Business travellers, for example, need to see the federal and provincial sales taxes paid on car rentals, hotel rooms, and airfares so these amounts can be claimed against/offset against what their companies owe. Include all taxes in one price, and suddenly a business is either guessing at amounts (something I understand accountants and bookkeepers hate); or the government is spending a lot of time that could be put to better use rewriting reams of legislation that has been drafted in the context of “advertised price does not include sales tax.” I suppose the all-in price could be advertised and broken out on the bill, but I don’t think that’s going to happen any time soon.
I’m with you; I’d like each item on the dollar menu to actually be a dollar instead of $1.05. (And in Ontario, $1.13, and in Nova Scotia, $1.15, or whatever the current PST/GST/HST rates are on other provinces). But that’s what happens when you have different levels of taxation in the various provinces, which leads to my next point…
That’s what happens when you have incredibly large countries–they have to be broken up into states or provinces that take responsibility for certain things that are (in very general terms) more of a local nature than they are a national one. In order to fund local services, states and provinces must raise funds somehow. They can do this in a variety of ways (income taxes, excise taxes, etc.), and they can levy sales taxes. Interestingly, your five or six hour trip here in Canada can have different effects other than prices: if you’re 18, you can legally purchase and consume alcohol here in Alberta, but a six hour drive east of here puts you in Saskatchewan, where you’d be refused at all liquor stores and bars until you were 19. Different provinces, different rules–and ultimately, different levels of taxation affecting bottom-line prices.
So, would some of you think it is okay if the local grocery store ran an advert that screamed “MAINE LOBSTER 79c per pound!” and then when you arrive at the checkout they have an Ocean Preservation Fee, a Fisherman Retirement Fee, a Hatchery Fund Fee, etc. so that it comes out to $11.99/lb?
If not, then how is that different from what the rental companies do?
Australia is the exception to this, it seems- There are no local sales taxes etc and businesses are still generally expected to just suck up things like state payroll taxes. So, differences in price are due to things like “being in the middle of nowhere” or “amount of competition” rather than obscure local taxes and fees.
Also, national advertising here generally avoids mention of prices- when you do see prices mentioned, they’ve been localised. But Australia only has a few states/Territories and they’re all huge, so it’s economically worthwhile.
The entire argument some of us are making is that regardless of whether or not those fees are statutory, the consumer can’t avoid paying them and they should therefore should be built into the final price- LOBSTER $11.99/kg in this case. There’s no reason the supermarket can’t have “LOBSTER 79c, STATUTORY FEES $11.20 [Breakdown]” on the receipt, as long as the price on the shelf (and in-store ads) is the all-inclusive price.
Nah, it’s OK… I was more offering an illustration for the folks reading along at home. “So, generally, large countries with a state/provincial system allow said divisions to set their own local sales taxes etc- except for Australia, where there is only one Commonwealth Goods and Services Tax, which is collected at State level and then redistributed by the Commonwealth Government.”
It often surprises me how little difference there really is between the various States/Territories in Australia. In a day-to-day sense, the only noticeable differences, it seems, are car registration plates, the appearance of driver’s licences, and retail and liquor trading hours.
Just wondering–is there anything specifically preventing an Australian state from instituting a sales tax? For example, Canadian provinces are constitutionally permitted to raise taxes for provincial purposes, but exactly what taxes are allowed (or not allowed) is not specified in the Constitution. So, provinces can institute what taxes they like; and they most often raise taxes through income taxes on residents, excise taxes on certain goods, and sales taxes on goods sold in the province. (Note that Alberta is the exception on sales tax; it does not levy any provincial sales tax.) There are certain other taxes that various provinces have come up with, because they are not specifically prevented from doing so as long as the funds raised are earmarked for use by the province.
Note that in my experience (which differs from yours) the existence of a nationwide GST does not preclude provinces from also having sales taxes–here in Canada, we’re hit with both a federal GST and, in most provinces, a provincial sales tax too. You have a GST, sure, but I’m still wondering–what keeps Australian states from instituting a sales tax like US states and Canadian provinces? Is a state sales tax specifically prevented by your constitution? Or is the answer to the question as simple as being political suicide for the state politician who suggests it?
Income tax is a Federal responsibility only as per the Australian Constitution (I believe), and I’m pretty sure there’s something in there as well about sales taxes too.
States are allowed allowed to levy various taxes and fees- Stamp Duty, Payroll taxes, motor vehicle fees and a whole bunch of stuff like that, for example, but I’m 99% sure there’s are legal or constitutional reasons why there are no state sales taxes in Australia.
Also, it would be political suicide for anyone to even think about daring to breathe the merest suggestion of instituting a state sales tax. It’s the sort of thing that could cause a state’s economy to collapse from the protests and people moving interstate to avoid it.
Back to the OP. The fees cited were not taxes. The taxes were added to the total and I didn’t complain about them in the OP. In fact, because those fees were not mandated taxes, there was an asterisk on the receipt that indicated they were subject to tax (but added to the quoted price). Whenever I buy something (except gasoline) I assume that mandated tax is going to be added to the price. That’s life. However, I can usually assume that the price stated is the actual price not including mandated taxes.
If government can require that gasoline stations have to charge the exact price they advertise,*** including taxes***, why can’t that happen with all consumer goods? Any gas station owner that charges a “pump usage fee” will be out of business in a day.
