Well, OK, you’re probably not going to literally have 20 different rates, since some municipalities will coincidentally have the same rate, and a fair number will have no municipal sales tax and so it’s just the state rate. But Ohio cities absolutely can impose their own sales tax on top of the state’s, and many do.
I’ve heard of places where there are even different rates in different parts of the same city.
Damn, and I was upset when the tax went to 6.625% as for years I would calculate sales tax in my head, and that was the end of it. I can’t imagine all those different sales taxes. NYC was always pretty bad.
I just learned recently that the longstanding Connecticut sales tax of 6.35% now has an exception for prepared meals, which adds another 1% for a total of 7.35%. Google says that was passed in 2019. Rat bastards. It essentially just adds a dollar to every fast food meal.
And sometimes different items are taxed - for example, in NYS clothing items under $110 are exempt from state sales tax , and they are also exempt from NYC sales tax but cross the street into Nassau or Westchester county and all clothing is subject to the county/municipal sales tax.
Isn’t all this discussion of sales tax somewhat off-topic? The OP is about businesses adding on their own fees, thus deceptively making their prices look lower than they really are. Whether taxes (imposed by the government) are or are not included in the posted price is IMHO a separate issue.
I’ll move these posts to the spin-off thread. I’m part of the problem.
We do that in Vegas a lot. We just make sure to not only tip on the total, including cocktails, but to bump it up to keep the server smiling.
I don’t think I even understand what you mean- do you mean people subtract alcohol from the bill before figuring out the tip? I’ve never heard of that and kind of wonder how those people explain it - do they also subtract soda coffee and tea from the bill or just alcohol? The only way I might not tip on alcohol is if it’s a private party and I know the host has already tipped the bartender.
I used to go to a bookstore whose cashier would say with every purchase “and that’s x cents for the governor” for the tax.
Yes, that’s supposed to be jovial and all. But in fact, at the time state tax was 3% and county tax was an additional 4%. Even though the store was in the city, the sales tax went to the county, who, sometimes, gave parts of it back to the city. I was a city employee and did budgets, so I knew how starved we were for every penny because the county did not give back a fair share.
A small thing, but it irritated me every time.
I have also never heard of it or even conceived of the concept, but I’m wondering if it’s related to those super expensive bottles. Like if you order a $400 bottle of wine, maybe you don’t tip on that? That still seems weird to me, though I guess not as weird as ordering a $400 bottle of wine in the first place.
Yeah, i sometimes tip in the total including tax, and sometimes in the total before tax, and either way i probably round the number and it might not even make a difference. But I’ve always started with the whole bill, food and drinks.
Of course, I’m not much of a drinker, so it would be beyond petty to remove the cost of the coffee, and maybe a glass of house wine, from the total before calculating the tip. I can imagine if someone buys a $200 meal and a $400 wine they might not tip 20% of $600. But i don’t really know.
I’m not sure, but considering some places will charge $30 for a glass of wine and $14 for a beer (like a Sam Adams) and $25 for a cocktail, that might have something to do with it. I order drinks at those places rarely enough, where I still tip on it.
Wouldn’t it add a dime? Assume a fast food meal is $10, another 1% on top of that is 10¢
I guess it depends on what your tipping philosophy is, including why you think the tip should be a certain percentage of the bill.
By one point of view, a tip rewards good service, and the amount of the tip should be proportional to the quality and quantity of service received. The server is working just as hard to bring you a $3 glass of wine as to bring you a $30 glass of wine, or to bring you a $0 glass of tap water as to bring you a $3 soft drink, so should the tip be similar either way?
By another point of view, the amount of the tip is proportional to the overall bill because the more you can afford to pay for your meal, the more you can afford to tip, and the higher your expectations can and should be for your overall dining experience. By that standard, it makes sense to tip ten times as much for a $30 drink as for a $3 drink.
There’s also a de minimis amount that sets a floor. I’m never tipping less than a $5. At a diner I go to with an awesome waitress, she gets $10 even for a $15 breakfast check.
If my breakfast bill is $12, I’m just leaving a twenty.
I’ve always been taught to tip on pretax and I guess that also would exclude fees, but I’m not sure what these fees are. Corkage?
In practice, I just look at the final number and ballpark a 20% tip on that. Doing it pretax doesn’t really make all that much a difference. 20% on a $100 pretax and a $110 tax included bill is a difference of $2.
At sit-down restaurants I tip on the whole bill, including tax and alcohol, around 20%, and then add whatever it takes to bring my total to an even dollar amount.
When I order a pizza to go, I pick it up myself and I give them a $20 for a $16 pizza and tell them to keep the change. This is ridiculous, I know. I’m not sure why I do it, except the kids at the pizza place are really nice and I figure they can use $4 more than I’ll miss it.
Yeah, I guess if I looked at the bill and it had some weird significant fee then I wouldn’t tip on it. If it was a $2 fee on a $65 bill, I wouldn’t bother mentally removing it before figuring tip. I don’t think I’ve ever had that happen to me though.
In Canada we moved to Chip+PIN transactions for credit cards about a decade ago, so rather than just writing your tip amount on the receipt you are prompted to tip on the wireless terminal based on the total.
Standard options are usually 15%/18%/20%/custom $, so you could make the adjustment and if you wanted to tip 18% pre-tax just use the 15% preset.
The reality is I end up tipping on the post-tax amount and don’t fuss about the extra 3%.
Did we give up when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?