The benefit is to the corporations. Tickets seem cheaper when you are planning, even though we all know it will be more expensive. Something to do with our dumb monkey brains
The reason is that politicians of a certain persuasion don’t want taxes to be “hidden.” They want them to be open and explicit to keep people angry at the government for taking so much of their money.
There is, in truth, also an advantage for retailers. They can advertise one price for the whole country, or a whole state or whatever, and not need to worry about the thousands upon thousands of different tax jurisdictions with not only different rates, but different categories that products and services can fall into.
For the consumer, it all means you have no fucking clue what you’ll actually end up paying.
I am American and there is no benefit to not having the prices reflect after taxation, unless you’re some kind of big business where they screw over the patrons at the register like Walmart does.
The problem is that every location has different tax rates. For example here in Texas I pay 8 cents on the dollar where I live, but other locations have a city and/or a county tax which is added to the 8 cents per dollar state tax.
But shops sell the same items at a different prices anyway. It’s not like the manufacture sets the prices, the retailer does. You occasionally see RRP (recommended retail price) on the product packaging in the UK, but the price you pay is the price the shop lists. Surely in America each store has to print the price stickler/labels themselves, so I don’t understand why this is a valid reason.
I’m not demanding an explanation from you btw- thank you for the response, I appreciate the insight. I’m just genuinely confused to why this is way of pricing items is even allowed!
Unified marketing within a chain. McDonald’s and the like can advertise their $5 special nation wide and not have to worry about every locale’s specific tax.
We also have a metric shit tons of tax jurisdictions. Every state, county, city and special district can add their own tax. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are over 100,000 tax jurisdictions in the US. The people who set the price for a specific good don’t have to worry about tax cutting into the margin. That’s saved for someone else, usually a firm who specializes in tax calculations, at the point of sales.
Just to add on to this, for those who want to understand just how dumb and minute it is, I have different sales tax rates in different parts of my city. 🙃
Are you American? If so, would you prefer to have the price include all taxes up front, or is there some benefit of having prices listed like this?
The benefit is to the corporations. Tickets seem cheaper when you are planning, even though we all know it will be more expensive. Something to do with our dumb monkey brains
I know I’d eventually get used to it but I’d find that so annoying if I moved to the US.
Yeah true, it’s so pervasive that I don’t even think about it. It is anti consumer and manipulative and frustrating
The reason is that politicians of a certain persuasion don’t want taxes to be “hidden.” They want them to be open and explicit to keep people angry at the government for taking so much of their money.
There is, in truth, also an advantage for retailers. They can advertise one price for the whole country, or a whole state or whatever, and not need to worry about the thousands upon thousands of different tax jurisdictions with not only different rates, but different categories that products and services can fall into.
For the consumer, it all means you have no fucking clue what you’ll actually end up paying.
Australia has one tax rate for goods and services. It’s called the GST. Why can’t america do that?
Imagine getting downvoted for a question
A pretty benign one at that, but oh well.
I am American and there is no benefit to not having the prices reflect after taxation, unless you’re some kind of big business where they screw over the patrons at the register like Walmart does.
The problem is that every location has different tax rates. For example here in Texas I pay 8 cents on the dollar where I live, but other locations have a city and/or a county tax which is added to the 8 cents per dollar state tax.
But shops sell the same items at a different prices anyway. It’s not like the manufacture sets the prices, the retailer does. You occasionally see RRP (recommended retail price) on the product packaging in the UK, but the price you pay is the price the shop lists. Surely in America each store has to print the price stickler/labels themselves, so I don’t understand why this is a valid reason.
I’m not demanding an explanation from you btw- thank you for the response, I appreciate the insight. I’m just genuinely confused to why this is way of pricing items is even allowed!
Unified marketing within a chain. McDonald’s and the like can advertise their $5 special nation wide and not have to worry about every locale’s specific tax.
We also have a metric shit tons of tax jurisdictions. Every state, county, city and special district can add their own tax. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are over 100,000 tax jurisdictions in the US. The people who set the price for a specific good don’t have to worry about tax cutting into the margin. That’s saved for someone else, usually a firm who specializes in tax calculations, at the point of sales.
Just to add on to this, for those who want to understand just how dumb and minute it is, I have different sales tax rates in different parts of my city. 🙃