My American Brethren! Can you explain this to me?

[TheLefty]

I live in New Hampshire.

No sales tax.

Though I do hate travelling into Massachusetts and getting caught without that extra 25/

 

[Zero_ctrl]

It's dumb yes.
It's a marketing trick though.
Kind of the same reason you'll see stuff priced for $19.99 rather than $20, makes it look like it's less expensive.

 

[Cmichaels]

For what it counts, most places don't charge tax on newspapers.
Edit: I suck at typing

 

[SimuLord]

The whole "sales tax" thing. When buying stuff, it says one price when you see it on the self, right? But then when you take it to the cashier, it adds like 7% of the price to whatever you're buying, yeah? How does that make sense? My reasoning for asking this is that I'm going to Hollywood for a holiday next year, and I don't want to get caught out when I try to buy something.

So I'm asking any Americans reading this, why do shops in your country do that? Is there some legal reason why it happens? Do all shops do that over there? And for other people not from America, does this happen in your counrty, or does it make any sense to you? It's something I can't get my head around on my own.

EDIT: To clarify, what I'm basically asking is why can't American shops include VAT (or thier equivalent) in their prices?

You're correct in assuming that VAT and sales tax are basically one and the same. The reason it's not included in the price mostly has to do with truth in advertising laws.

See, companies advertise the retail price in their marketing materials ("Pre-order Fallout: New Vegas at your local Best Buy for $49.99 and get...") So Best Buy has to make that their shelf price.

Since sales tax is different in every state (and some states, like New Hampshire, Oregon, and a few others, don't have sales tax), companies can't make different marketing materials for every different state in which they do business.

and this is why the rest of the world giggles when americans call themselves the UNITED states, you guys couldn't be more divided if you tried, just look at the difference between California and Alabama for christs sake, you should just split your country so the idiots get the south and the people the rest of the world like (liberals) get the north, SORTED

Amen, brother. I've been saying this for years. Someone wrote a book called "The Nine Nations of North America" which posited a future in which the US divides along cultural lines into nine distinct countries that would all be far more unified than the current 50-state arrangement.

I feel so bad for informed rational americans when their idiots are out with flags yelling fags, they should divorce their idiots into the south (that way 90% won't have to move BOOM)

It's not just the South. The inter-mountain West is pretty bad too.

See, America can be fairly neatly divided along cultural lines:
1) New England (ME/NH/VT/MA/RI/CT, capital at Boston)
2) The Mid-Atlantic Corridor (eastern NY/NJ/eastern PA/MD/DE, capital at New York City)
3) The Rust Belt (western NY/western PA/WV/OH/MI/IN/IL, capital at Chicago)
4) The Old South/Confederacy (all the old Confederate states except Texas and plus Kentucky, capital at Atlanta)
5) The Breadbasket (ND/SD/MN/WI/IA/MO/KS/OK, capital at Omaha)
6) The Wasteland (MT/WY/ID/UT/CO/NM/AZ/NV, capital at Denver)
7) Texas
8) Cascadia (WA/OR/CA, capital at San Francisco)
9) Hawaii
10) Alaska

Each of the above units has far more in common with itself than with the current ungovernable USA.

 

[Tipsy Giant]

The whole "sales tax" thing. When buying stuff, it says one price when you see it on the self, right? But then when you take it to the cashier, it adds like 7% of the price to whatever you're buying, yeah? How does that make sense? My reasoning for asking this is that I'm going to Hollywood for a holiday next year, and I don't want to get caught out when I try to buy something.

So I'm asking any Americans reading this, why do shops in your country do that? Is there some legal reason why it happens? Do all shops do that over there? And for other people not from America, does this happen in your counrty, or does it make any sense to you? It's something I can't get my head around on my own.

EDIT: To clarify, what I'm basically asking is why can't American shops include VAT (or thier equivalent) in their prices?

You're correct in assuming that VAT and sales tax are basically one and the same. The reason it's not included in the price mostly has to do with truth in advertising laws.

See, companies advertise the retail price in their marketing materials ("Pre-order Fallout: New Vegas at your local Best Buy for $49.99 and get...") So Best Buy has to make that their shelf price.

Since sales tax is different in every state (and some states, like New Hampshire, Oregon, and a few others, don't have sales tax), companies can't make different marketing materials for every different state in which they do business.

and this is why the rest of the world giggles when americans call themselves the UNITED states, you guys couldn't be more divided if you tried, just look at the difference between California and Alabama for christs sake, you should just split your country so the idiots get the south and the people the rest of the world like (liberals) get the north, SORTED

Amen, brother. I've been saying this for years. Someone wrote a book called "The Nine Nations of North America" which posited a future in which the US divides along cultural lines into nine distinct countries that would all be far more unified than the current 50-state arrangement.

I feel so bad for informed rational americans when their idiots are out with flags yelling fags, they should divorce their idiots into the south (that way 90% won't have to move BOOM)

It's not just the South. The inter-mountain West is pretty bad too.

See, America can be fairly neatly divided along cultural lines:
1) New England (ME/NH/VT/MA/RI/CT, capital at Boston)
2) The Mid-Atlantic Corridor (eastern NY/NJ/eastern PA/MD/DE, capital at New York City)
3) The Rust Belt (western NY/western PA/WV/OH/MI/IN/IL, capital at Chicago)
4) The Old South/Confederacy (all the old Confederate states except Texas and plus Kentucky, capital at Atlanta)
5) The Breadbasket (ND/SD/MN/WI/IA/MO/KS/OK, capital at Omaha)
6) The Wasteland (MT/WY/ID/UT/CO/NM/AZ/NV, capital at Denver)
7) Texas
8) Cascadia (WA/OR/CA, capital at San Francisco)
9) Hawaii
10) Alaska

Each of the above units has far more in common with itself than with the current ungovernable USA.

Even if those ten were separate I think i'd just go to toronto canada instead

 

[laol1999]

you need to calm down
i have 15% tax on everything i buy
it kinda sucks but it keeps everything running

 

[Obrien Xp]

Its a butt load of work to change it, and usually it changes somewhat frequently. Its been explained in

-snip-

really well.

In Canada there's the GST (federal) and PST (provincial) and now (at least in Ontario) there's the HST (harmonized) and HST food (for special food related circumstances, usually taxing you more if your buying more than you really need or reducing it if you buy bulk of certain things).

It took us months to figure it out (its relatively new).

http://www.rev.gov.on.ca/en/taxchange/hst.html

try to comprehend that.

Really, its the same concept as VAT (so far as I understand) its just not added to the pricetag (usually) because its too much work and really isn't always correct.

 

[szs0061]

Ya, but it could easily just list the price with the tax added in. I dunno why it does that. I guess so it doesn't look like they're just taking a random number out of the total cost of something and giving to the government. So the receipt will print something like this "Sub Total: $7, Sales Tax: $.70, Total: $7.70"

simply put, its because people are more likely to put something that costs $7.00 in their cart than something that costs $7.70

 

[xXAsherahXx]

I wish it was added into the display price, so I don't have to estimate before I go up to the cashier with insufficient funds.

 

[RandyPants]

Same thing happened to me when I went there for a holiday - in NYC - I asked the prices of their hotel rooms and the clerk went "60.75 a night before tax."
Well tell me what it is after tax, woman.

It'd make more sense to have a total price AFTER tax included there, like here in Aussie, where you can look at the bill at see "GST X dollars included".

 

[Frozen Donkey Wheel2]

Why the hell does anyone feel compelled to quote to OP? Obviously, if you're posting in this topic, it's assumed that it's already in direct response to the OP, so why bother quoting it?

OT: Essentially.....The house gets a cut.

 

[Aidinthel]

What I don't get is that sales tax is practically the same as those tax stamps (except on everything, not just documents) that you Americans objected to so much you fought a war with us about it.

Except the issue was that the colonists did not have a representative in the Parliament that levied the tax, rather than the tax itself. "Taxation without representation" is the common phrase. In fact, the lack of representation was the real point, and the tax was just one specific example of unfairness.

And everyone who is posting just to complain and and ask why American stores don't include tax in their prices please just read the thread. Seriously, it's been answered multiple times and there is a perfectly reasonable explanation.

 

[Abanic]

The sales tax is similar to a VAT (value added tax) except the VAT is applied at each point in a product's manufacture, whereas the sales tax is only applied at the end when a product is sold. This method allows the state governments to receive money IF their economies are actually being successful, because an integral part of a successful economy is consumer purchases. The VAT ensures that a government makes money regardless of whether the products being manufactured are selling or sitting on the shelves of shops.

The better system in people's opinion depends on whether they think their government should still make money when the policies they made to ensure economic stability are failing. If you think the government should still be rewarded when things are going bad, then the VAT is the right answer. If you think that the government should only be rewarded when the economy is well and consumer confidence is high, then the sales tax is the appropriate method.

Having a Sales tax makes the financial aspect of business owning easier for new enterprises, but a VAT discourages new industry by making business (a difficult livelihood at best) a bit more convoluted. VAT taxes EVERY stage of a product instead of just the end; raw materials are taxed, components are taxed, final assembly is taxed, packaging is taxed, shipment is taxed, selling is taxed. When we simply add between 5-10% of the sale price at the end, Sales Tax is a much easier system; fewer regulations, less paperwork, less bureaucracy, and less wasted time.

 

[Squarez]

What I don't get is that sales tax is practically the same as those tax stamps (except on everything, not just documents) that you Americans objected to so much you fought a war with us about it.

Except the issue was that the colonists did not have a representative in the Parliament that levied the tax, rather than the tax itself. "Taxation without representation" is the common phrase. In fact, the lack of representation was the real point, and the tax was just one specific example of unfairness.

Fair enough. For some reason that just skipped my mind when I wrote it, I just remember a lot of angry Americans getting riled up about stamp taxes.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

The whole "sales tax" thing. When buying stuff, it says one price when you see it on the self, right? But then when you take it to the cashier, it adds like 7% of the price to whatever you're buying, yeah? How does that make sense? My reasoning for asking this is that I'm going to Hollywood for a holiday next year, and I don't want to get caught out when I try to buy something.

So I'm asking any Americans reading this, why do shops in your country do that? Is there some legal reason why it happens? Do all shops do that over there? And for other people not from America, does this happen in your counrty, or does it make any sense to you? It's something I can't get my head around on my own.

EDIT: To clarify, what I'm basically asking is why can't American shops include VAT (or thier equivalent) in their prices?

its a legal thing, anything besides food has a sales tax, so when you buy food its exactly as it is but everything else has a sales tax, so if you spend 490 bucks, expect to spend roughly 53 bucks. (even then im not positive but restaraunts might have a tax...not positive on that though)

 

[Xanadu84]

My guess is making price tags universal for the company. Company makes Item A. Item needs to be 10 Dollars. However, in State A, sales tax makes it 11 dollars. In state B, its 10.50. In state C, its 10:00. Back in State A, the state decides to encourage consumer spending, and give a tax free day, changing the price for a day. In State B, items exported out of the state through the mail are not subject to sales tax, making the item have 2 different prices depending on the method of purchase, and where you purchased it from. In State C, taxes on this item change slightly. For them, its easier to just give a price, and let all the places selling the items work out their final billing cost. In addition, why would the business purposefully include the cost of the tax, and make their item appear to cost more? Its kind of annoying, but it makes sense.

 

[4484448444844484]

it's because it's easier to sell something if it seems like it costs less.

 

[manaman]

Since nobody in the entire thread decided to point it out:

VAT taxes are taken before the retailer ever gets the product. VAT taxes are calculated for each each step in the process from raw materials to finished product and each time more value is added they pay more tax (according to the amount paid so far and the amount of value added of course).

Sales taxes are not paid by the retailer, and not added into the cost before the retailer gets it. Sales taxes are charged by the goverment at the time of sale and retailers are forced to accept the money for the goverment.

That is why sales tax is not added into the price. It's not a part of the price of the item. Even if they did show the cost with the sales tax, as a convince would they round up fractions of pennies and end up charging millions of extra dollars each year for all the rounded up fractions? Suppose that wasn't an issue, then you would have prices that could vary not only from state to state but also from city to city. Imagine trying to manage POS sales software for a national company when every store has to have a different set of prices.

the state decides to encourage consumer spending, and give a tax free day, changing the price for a day.

They love to give out a weekend before school starts each year so that people can get a break on all the school supplies they need. It's a great idea seeing how the people who are hit the hardest by the sales tax on school supplies are the poorest families.

Anyway, I was pointing out that tax rates can be flexible thus adding in the price on the tag would not be an easy task, and tax free days are a better example then what I came up with, thanks for reminding me.

 

[logiman]

It`s 24% in my country and we make a 5th of the money you make..so shut up and stop complaining

 

[xxcloud417xx]

I'm living in Ontario in Canada and until a few weeks ago we used to have GST (which is the federal sales tax) and PST (which is the provincial sales tax). Not all items had PST on them so you were saved the 8% tax on certain items (the GST was only 5%). However, the awesome Ontario government decided to implement HST (Harmonized Sales Tax) which combines both taxes into one (13%) and is required on ANY sold item. Thus gas prices are now ridiculously high (since they were only subject to the 5% GST) and so are other items.

lol until you start paying 13% tax you shouldn't really complain. And besides taxes pay for your social services.