Y’know, taxes on cigarettes, liquor, fast cars, private jets. I live in Canada where such taxes are commonplace, have been around a long time, so we’re used to it.
Since we seem to be living in an age of predatory capitalism, as it were. The customer has less power, and is routinely screwed. Even though we also pay for bureaucrats and industry standard boards, etc, etc. Business practices seem to get shadier every year. So why not an exploitation tax?
Take banks, they charge people $1+ to use the ATM. To withdraw their own money! And they post enormous profits. If an audit revealed that they were actually profiting from that fee, not just covering their costs that income gets way heavily taxed. Same for million dollar bonuses. Huge tax.
If Best Buy’s books demonstrate that the extended warranty program is making big profit, not consumer electronics, much bigger tax rate on that income.
Got any other examples?
(Yeah, I know, it’s never going to happen, but it’s not a bad idea, as ideas go.)
…wait, your bank charges you to use the ATM at their branch? I thought the fee was just if you used an ATM that wasn’t your bank’s. I understand that fee, it’s an access fee and I just assumed part of the Interac system.
I just changed my data plan and opted not to spring $8/mo for caller id any more. Seriously, this is like 15% of the total cost of the plan - a bit out of line.
Y’know who else would qualify? Those Payday loan people. Income from interest, regular tax rate. All income generated from exploitative ‘fees’, huge tax rate.
Basically anything you’re passing on to the consumer as a ‘cost of doing business’, if a quick audit reveals that it’s actually a profit generator, huge tax.
I think I understand where you’re coming from. Airlines for the per bag fee, gas stations that jack up the prices for the fuel that is already paid for when an event happens on the other side of the world that may, or may not, affect future gas prices, companies that allow credit card and other identity info to be stolen or hacked, politicians that break their campaign promises, the world for being unfair to you…
Turns out you can, at various levels of personal inconvienience, opt out of most of the things that seem unfair or exploitative.
Granted, I’m in the US, but I don’t pay anything for my bank account on a monthly or annual basis. They don’t charge me a cent to use their ATMs or even any ATMs in their network (I used one from a different bank entirely in Fiji that BofA is partnered with and had zero charge for use). Unless things are that different in Canada: get a better bank.
I also don’t get charged to close accounts with any of my utilities- this is the first time I’ve actually heard of such a thing. Interesting.
Don’t get me wrong: I definitely agree that any business that is making tremendous profits off of predatory fees should be held accountable (or even taxed) for that, but I suppose I don’t really encounter the fees you were mentioning, that’s all.
Can you move to an all cash lifestyle? No banks = no fees. You also might check out an Ontario Credit Union which belongs to The Exchange ATM Network, which allows credit union members to make surcharge free withdrawals and deposits at more than 1600 affiliated ATMS across Canada.
I’ll define various levels of personal inconvieneince as a one time fee of $60 and moving to a propane based lifestyle where you now have to go out and refill propane tanks if you desire on demand hot water and gas stove cooking. Or you can go solar for hot water and only take hot showers during the late afternoon.
I believe you can “vote with your pocket book” by not using services that rip you off. That could be discouraging it. As for raising tax revenue, it might be more trouble than its worth to set up a system that classifies profits into normal profits and exploitative profits. Just saying.
I also understand your angst and I’ve been living without cable or satillite TV for over 4 years now.
Holy crap, your bank charges you to be their customer? How did that come about? I’d never stand for it. I also refuse to get a credit card that charges me an annual fee.
We rarely use an ATM, but a few weeks ago my husband had to pick up some cash on our way to the county fair and we stopped at a local bank, where we had to pay $2.50 to withdraw $100 :eek:. That’s the last time we’ll do any sort of business there.
I’d like to see this kind of tax applied to my health insurance company every time they raise my rate and slash covered services at the same time. Seems to me they should only be able to do one or the other.
I’m with Scotia, pay a monthly fee, and the only fee free ATM is the one at my branch. Everywhere else, $1+. I used to get 10 debit card usages, a month, no charge. Now I get one, after that, $1.40.
Are they literally the only bank/credit union available to you? If not, the way to avoid this is to (as others have pointed out) shop around for another account.
As for avoiding the fee that the ATM charges, most grocery stores that I have been to let you get cash with your debit card and a purchase at the checkout register.
I’ve been with PC Financial for 7 years and I haven’t paid a cent in fees. You need to get together with your bank and discuss it (which I did before I switched). They don’t even charge for cheques. You can withdraw from any PC Financial ATM or from any CIBC ATM with no additional charge. No interac fees, no cheque or transaction fees.
However, they don’t have brick and mortar branches which might not work for some people.
So, even in Canada, you do have options.
(Note: I am not a representative of PC Financial, just a happy user who posts here.)
I recently received a letter from SunTrust, where I have had a free checking account due to my age for nearly five years, that “Due to changes in the industry, we are updating our product offerings and discontinuing certain account types, including Free Checking.” Effective November 10, my checking account is being changed to “Everyday Checking”, which will have a $7 monthly fee unless I either maintain a $500"minimum daily collected balance" or have Direct Deposit. There will also be a $5 monthly fee for unlimited Check Card purchases, which kicks in any time I use my debit card. I also have the option of changing to a “Solid Trust Banking” account, which has a $17 monthly fee unless I have at least $5000 in that account, or $10,000 in total linked accounts (which would include money market accounts, CDs or IRAs), or a SunTrust mortgage with automatic payment from a SunTrust account.
They seem to think that I already qualify for the fee waiver on the Everyday Checking account, although I’m not sure where they’re getting that from. I really don’t want to have to change banks, since there’s a SunTrust office walking distance from my house, but I may look into my other options just to see if this sort of thing has now become standard in my area.
To the OP - I’m with CIBC and have a fee free account. Most of the banks have them and if you let your current bank know you’re shopping around they’ll probably change your account.
I have accounts with both Scotia and BMO and neither charges any fee so long as I use one of their ATMs, anywhere. Including Barbados in the case of Scotia (although they take a healthy exchange fee). I pay no annual or monthly fees to either of them although that may be because I am a senior. But it always pays to negotiate. I had an account in the states with Wachovia. It was taken over during the bust by Wells-Fargo. I got a letter in June, saying that henceforth they would be charging $12 a month to keep that account open. So when I visited my son in Seattle in July I went round to close that account. Well, the bank officer explained that I had the “wrong kind of account” and he put into the right kind that had no fees whatever. He was oh so cordial. It helped that my wife and I had about $70,000 in CDs that we were prepared to cash in too, but he didn’t know that till after. The original letter had been very specific: no amount of other kinds of deposits could be taken into account in waiving the $12 fee (only keeping an average balance of $2000 or a constant balance of $1000 could do that). Of course, no one asked what kind of account we wanted when they took over the Wachovia accounts.
One of the sin taxes that I find especially annoying is on books, magazines, and newspapers. And now that Quebec has decided to “homologate” its taxes with the federal government, they have begun to tax those things too.
This is one reason I’m happy that I’m at a small, local bank. They run things as a bank, not a money-making operation. I would say that their fees to bounce a check or transfer money (directly – you can do it online for free) are high, but I rarely use those. But I get free checking, no-fee withdrawals if I use the bank’s ATM, no fees on credit or debit cards, free online banking. It helped that they didn’t get caught up in the housing bubble – they underwrote their own mortgages and didn’t try to sell them off. Thus, they used good business practices and tried only to make a reasonable profit, instead of gambling in order to make big gains. Thus, they don’t need to add fees to fix their mistakes.
The cost of cable TV is ridiculous. I switched to basic cable after I realized my cable bill had increased 25% in five years – five years where there was very little inflation of other things. At the same time, my Internet bill hadn’t changed at all (it’s since gone up a couple of dollars). And the most absurd thing was when I cancelled they asked me if they could give me a deal. The deal turned out to be a 10% reduction in my bill for six months; about $35. By cutting back to basic, I was saving over $50 every single month.