The store, of course. They’re the ones taking my money. What happens after that doesn’t interest me.
The store is not ‘ripping you off’. They are collecting money they are legally required to, then remitting it to the taxing authority. The store does not keep taxes, in fact they spend money collecting it, tracking it and then remitting it, accountants cost money.
You aren’t being ripped off by taxes either if you drove/walked/rode on streets and sidewalks to get to the store, driving past fire stations, parks, police stations, public health depts, public libraries and schools to get to the store. You use it, you pay for it. We all have to.
No, the government is taking some of it. And by leaving sales tax separate, instead of including it in the posted price, they’re making that more obvious: it’s not the store’s fault that you have to pay that extra dollar (or whatever).
Please don’t shop in American stores if you hate it. Also, especially don’t use any of the public good and services listed in my post to do so. Roads, streets, parks, libraries, 911, etc. Stay wherever you are from since it is so perfect and absolutely, utterly free of charge.
OTOH, I am perfectly comfortable rounding up or down at the cash register, down to .00 if .02 or lower, up to.05 if .03 or greater. It will all even out.
Oh, I pay taxes here. More than you guys do, probably. We pay a 17% VAT (sales tax) here - but it least it’s included in the price. It makes shopping a bit more expensive but a lot less annoying.
Glad you pay taxes there. IIU, you are good with paying more for the convenience of not being annoyed by how prices are displayed and taxes collected. I promise to be equally as good a sport when I am in your country shopping. Now, please, you be a good sport about how we do it here. (You are welcome here no matter what, just to clear).
Most grocery items are taxed at 1% in Illinois.
There’s a good nationwide summary here:
Off topic, but I’m curious. When you talk to a butcher, do you ask for meat by weight or by cost? For example, I might ask for two pounds of sliced ham, or I might ask for five dollars of sliced ham. How do you disambiguate “pound”? Or do you order by gram or stone or something else?
Bolding by Tripler. . .
I had to step away a few days for work’s sake, but scrolling through the replies in my absence, the bolding statement above caught my eye. Reading this as-is, do I understand that banks charge you more to “buy” money from them? If you needed $1,000 in a wrap of $20 bills, what . . . would they charge you $1,001 for the privilege or something?
Tripler
And I mean above and beyond the montly costs of having a Corporate account with the bank.
In Michigan at least, there is a “Sales Tax Discount” to help offset this cost. From the Michigan 5080, Sales, Use and Withholding Taxes Monthly/Quarterly Return
Monthly Filer
• If the tax is less than $9, calculate the discount by multiplying the tax by 2/3 (.6667).
• Enter $6 if tax is $9 to $1,200 and paid by the 12th, or $9 to $1,800 and paid by the 20th .
• If the tax is more than $1,200 and paid by the 12th, calculate discount using this formula: (Tax x .6667 x .0075). The maximum discount is $20,000 for the tax period.
• If the tax is more than $1,800 and paid by the 20th, calculate discount using this formula: (Tax x .6667 x .005). The maximum discount is $15,000 for the tax period.
Quarterly Filer
• If the tax is less than $27, calculate the discount by multiplying the tax by 2/3 (.6667)
• Enter $18 if tax is $27 to $3,600 and paid by the 12th, or $27 to $5,400 and paid by the 20th.
• If the tax is more than $3,600 and paid by the 12th, calculate discount using this formula: (Tax x .6667 x .0075). The maximum discount is $20,000 for the tax period.
• If the tax is more than $5,400 and paid by the 20th, calculate discount using this formula: (Tax x .6667 x .005). The maximum discount is $15,000 for the tax period.
Whether this offsets the costs entirely is probably unclear, but it’s definitely motivation (beyond penalties and interest) to keep good records and file promptly.
Note that in one place it defines 2/3 as .6667 and uses .6667 elsewhere - this has definitely been an issue at least once in trying to reconcile things (matching what they accrue vs. what they pay, which are different due to the discount) when I used 2/3 in Excel instead.
Yup, that’s exactly it. Here’s the first fee schedule I found online. Rolled coins, for example are 20¢. That means a $10 roll of quarters costs $10.20, but at the same time a 50¢ roll of pennies cost 70¢. They also have a 60¢ charge for strapped bills.
That always throws people, but you have to keep in mind that you’re paying for a service. They have to buy all that rolled and counted change from someone else, and somewhere along the line, someone is putting in the time to count and roll it.
To make it even better, they also charge you for cash you deposit. Bring them $5000 and you’ll end up with $4990.50 left over.
And, yes, I do see that they allow for a certain amount of free coins/bills/deposits. That’s just the way this specific account is set up. Other accounts will have similar fees.
And also, I know, some banks don’t charge for rolled coins, but I assure you, they’re covering that expense elsewhere. Likely in the monthly fee you pay them to hold on to your money that they don’t actually hold on to, they loan it out to other people and collect interest on it.
This was the reason that when I started doing the books/banking, I started rounding all my deposits to the nearest $10.00. If my deposit should be $1007.43, I’d send $1010.00 to the bank. No reason to send a five, two singles, a quarter, a dime, a nickle and 3 pennies to the bank just to have to buy them back later. Before anyone says anything, it’s a small business, it’s only me counting money/doing bookkeeping and it all balances out just fine (as it has since I started doing it 20 years ago).
My discount is usually $10-$12. Losing the discount AND getting a late fee is a great motivator to get that in on time.
In my experience people in the UK rarely ask for things by cost. In any case we would ask for “A pounds worth please.” Since metrication the question is moot.
When buying ham I always ask for a number of slices (I might specify thickness though); oranges or apples would be by quantity too.
The First job I had, I was paid cash, fortnightly. There were only notes in the envelope, odd amounts were simply carried forward. That was back in the early 1960s and my employer was a large Local Authority.
Fascinating @Joey_P. I had heard of “big box” banks charging $5/month for personal checking accounts, and reckoned there was a business cost for commercial accounts. That link is helpful, thank you!
Admittedly, I don’t do finance or bookkeeping. And I fled a stupid bank that wanted to charge me $5/month for the frak of it; I told “Smells Fart-go” to f*ck off. I cannot simply imagine what that craptastic bank charges for corporate accounts.
Tripler
This thread has taught me well that there is a cost to doing/adjusting business.
Yup, with commercial banking we get charged for everything. Every deposit, withdrawal, ACH deposit, wire transfer…everything.
In addition to what I mentioned above about rounding my deposits to the nearest $10, I’ll also combine deposits when I can. That is, if I don’t go to the bank today, when I go tomorrow, I’ll combine the two deposits into one. It makes for a tiny bit of extra work on my end but saves a few bucks a month, so why not.
So how is sales tax calculated by law? If I say my price includes sales tax, Does the state just go with that? or is there a rule that the sales tax is charges based on the marked price? Bottom line, can I even actually say, my price includes sales tax?
It depends on the state I believe. I’ve heard people say that sales tax is legally charged to the customer, but that’s not the case in Michigan. Here, sales tax is legally levied on the merchant, who is allowed to add it to the cost of the item if it is itemized as such. If there is no itemized sales tax, then the merchant is paying it (if it’s taxable) and often that’s a thing that’s advertised around here: “And we’ll pay your sales tax!”. If your prices are “including sales tax”, the state will likely charge you tax on the entire amount, not the 1/(1+sales tax) fraction it would be if it were itemized specifically.
Just slightly off topic: for about a month my local grocery store now asks you if you want to donate your change to [some worthy cause, I forget exactly] and it spells out what the donation will be. As in, if your total was $4.78 it asks, “Do you want to donate your change of 22 cents to Worthy Cause today?”
I’m sure this charitable action is mostly driven by hopes of not having to hand out as many coins, though it asks the same question whether you’re using a debit card or cash.
Today I happened to be buying just a green pepper, one green pepper at a display price of “10 for $10.” Yes, they do stupid prices like that all the time.
Anyway, I went through a self service. The machine recorded my total as “$1.00” and then asked “Do you want to donate your change of 100 cents to Worthy Cause today?”
A little glitch there in the program, me thinks.
Yep. A glitch. That’s why humans still have jobs.