Is it true that American price tags aren't accurate since tax only gets added on top of the price at check-out?

Is it true that American price tags aren't accurate since tax only gets added on top of the price at check-out?

> German "bants"

Not bants, a genuine inquiry. That's fucked up mane, is that a reason most people in your cunt are in Greece tier debt?

It varies from state to state. Some states pay no sales tax.

Because of this, stores don't label with added sales tax, as it would be too different across 50 states for every single item and just be a waste of time calculating it for every item in stock.

> a genuine inquiry
Okay, I'll bite. Yes.
For any given widget you have applicable federal, state, municipal and possibly local sales taxes, any one of which may change at any time. You also have different tax rates on different types of widgets; food can be taxed at a different rate to luxury items, etc. which are also prone to being changed at any time. It's easier to have the computer keep track of which tax rates apply than to run through the store every day with a price gun and change every single fucking item because some dickhead on the city council raised the tax by a tenth of a penny to pay for an offramp or a mistress.
So you walk into a store, see a widget at $9.99. It's probably about 1.06 to 1.10 times that price after taxes, which are all delineated on the receipt. Big deal.

Okay, thanks for the reply. What states have no sales tax? I figure places like California would be on the more expensive side right?

It's just weird to me, I mean wouldn't you want to be more in check of how much you spend at the store? Meme all you want about German autism but your personal finances are kind of a big deal.

Also, if multiple items have a different tax rate added on top of the actual price tag that just might render financial planning obsolete

>federal
Okay, I changed my mind here. I don't think there's a federal sales tax. I was just on a roll.

You're talking about six to ten cents on the dollar, maybe. If you're anal enough to calculate exactly how much everything in your basket costs, you're probably smart enough to multiply it by 1.0whatever and determine the price after tax. I do it in my head, and I'm kind of a dumbass.
Of course, I'm also never so close to broke that it matters exactly how much I spend.

That doesn't make any sense. Why would a shop in Texas not include the real price because taxes are different in Oregon?

It's true, was fucking annoying desu

You just described every country on Earth.

its because your VAT is standardised. As user explained they have multiple layers of sales tax (roughly half as much as our VAT tho) so it doesn't make sense to mark up -- especially on products, as it varies city to city, state to state.

Tax rates change all the time. Sometimes the city raises a half-cent sales tax for X years to pay for a new bridge/whatever; why should every store in town run through every single item on the shelf and mark it every time the rate changes, only to change it again the next time another rate changes?

obviously because the shop has a branch in both texas and oregon,

no mate, that's bollocks. We have VAT set at a national level. You don't get Scotland deciding it wants to levee different taxes on a widget, then Glasgow deciding they want to tax it at a different rate to Edinburgh, etc...

Because they aren't standardised in the same way and change constantly with the slightest change in location etc. Not just statewide, think cities.

>2016
>having sales tax

>Be american
>get your money ready to pay
>you forgot the taxes and the tip money
>you're forced to take a loan to pay your cereals
>be in debts
>get shot
>your parents inherit your debts
>they get shot

>>your parents inherit your debts
Wut, is this a thing in Yurop?

I would happily pay any tax that keeps people like that out of my town.

So? Why can't the shop in Texas list the Texas price and the Oregon shop list the Oregon price? Why do two shops thousands of miles apart have to list the incorrect price for no reason?

That's like saying VAT is different here and in Germany so we can't include the real price on our things. It doesn't make any sense, obviously.

And yet you moochers drive over the border to buy our shit and clog up the I-5 with traffic jams

Americans over the age of 12 know that things in stores are taxed and bring enough money to cover the cost.
Marginally cleverer Americans buy most of those things online because we still waive sales tax to stimulate the growth of the internet.

Yeah how do tips factor in with this tax separate from price? Which comes first?

its twice the job, that's all

I'm like 1200 miles away from your Fagtopia. Leave me alone.

I wonder how many tourists have done a shop, keeping track of the total, only to be given a much higher bill. They must look like utter twats, especially if there is a big queue behind them getting impatient.

>Why can't the shop in Texas list the Texas price and the Oregon shop list the Oregon price? Why do two shops thousands of miles apart have to list the incorrect price for no reason.

Because both those shops are selling the same product across 50 states and territories, not including cities and counties setting sales tax. That would require the company to store thousands of documents to determine the exact rate for every single item they sell. Which is retarded and would waste lots of manpower hours. Plus what says.


>That's like saying VAT is different here and in Germany so we can't include the real price on our things. It doesn't make any sense, obviously.


Your national government sets the tax for the entire country. The U.S. has states and cities set the tax. Completely different scale.

Another reason the price after tax isn't marked on the item: stores have sales all the time. $100 widgets might be 10% off "this weekend only".
I don't even want to get into stacking the coupons.

>only to be given a much higher bill.
Tax usually adds like 2 cents to the dollar. You'd need to rack up a big bill for it to make a difference.

But everywhere has sales, everywhere has taxes, everywhere has discounts, every major corporation has outlets in dozens of different countries all with those same issues and they manage it.

>every major corporation has outlets in dozens of different countries all with those same issues and they manage it.
And they have divisions for each country that manage that. A single division in the U.S. would has to account for 1000+ different rates.

Are large corporations the only thing that exist in America?

I don't know that I would ever tip in a retail environment, but let's say you went to Starbucks. If I remember right they have a tip jar so you can just put as much or as little in it as you like. The employees would split it among themselves.
In a restaurant I would tip 20% of the price of the meal before tax, or round up so the total price, tax and at least 20% tip, came to a whole dollar amount.
I can only imagine that a European would just complain about everything until they were asked to leave.

If corporations had to deal expanding their buerocracy so as to manage marking their product for every state, them that would limit growth due to uneccesary micromanagement.

Duh.

Wew lad, let's not start something in this perfectly civil thread.

What of these "mom and pop" operations? Single outlet businesses that don't have to worry about other outlets in other tax regions?

Because America is retarded and gives companies power over consumers.

Mom and pop stores don't have to charge sales tax if they make the goods themselves. Only if they sell products made by incorporated bodies do they need to follow sales tax.

How's this in anyway harming the consumer?

>Mom and Pop
Unless they're running the till out of an old-fashioned analog cash register they're likely running some sort of merchant register software that calculates sales tax for them. It probably even keeps track of changes in the tax rate via a stored postal code variable. Even mom and pop stores in the middle of nowhere have credit card machines these days. (Yes, chip and pin.)

>Only if they sell products made by incorporated bodies do they need to follow sales tax.
I want to say that's not true but since I'm neither a tax lawyer or accountant all I have left is "I don't think that's accurate."
Technically if I sell you a nail for a nickel I'm supposed to report that as taxable income.

Wait, what? Businesses don't have to include tax if they sell a product made by a third party?

Even if he's right I think you have that backwards.

Yes, I messed that up.

The IRS doesn't check those transactions, it would be impossible for them to do so as they'd have to Non-corporate bodies regularly sell things for exact price to one another. Craigslist for example is allowed to exist for this reason. Essentially, yes. Organizations like the Girl Scouts sell you baked goods directly that they made going door to door for the piece they ask for and its legal.

Price*

You really have scouts going door to door selling home made baked goods?

Are those lemonade stands real too?

Framing it in the context of "mom and pop stores" put me in a specific mindset. Jim's Bait on the side of the road probably doesn't keep tax records but the family-run bookshop I go to definitely does.

Girl scouts don't actually bake the cookies any more but they do sell them by the box to raise money for their events.
Neighborhood kids sometimes set up lemonade stands, yes. Usually adults humor them by buying a glass of over- or under-sugared Kool-Aid so the kids can learn the value of "earning" their own money.
Personally, I just kited drugs for the local pushers. It put me through college.