this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2025
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Watching a documentary, there was aremark from the journalist on how, due to how wildly taxation on goods may vary, from area to area, in the US, most retailers do not put the full prices on the shelves and instead just tally it at checkout.

This made no sense to me, a european, as when I go to any regular shop, prices already include all taxes applicable to the product.

There are specialty stores where VAT and other taxes may not be applied on the price on the shelf but those are usually wholesellers, selling for professionals, that already know what additional taxes will be added and at which rates, at checkout.

Not having the full price you'll be paying, on display, seems very underhanded and a bad practice. The client should know how much they are going to pay from the moment they pick an item.

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[–] Canopyflyer@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

Yes.

Let me tell you when, why, and how I learned that you need to pay attention to taxes.

I was in third grade and my class had a field trip. This was 47 years ago, so the exact details of the trip are lost to time and rusty memory. The lesson remained.

There was something that the class could purchase at the end of the day on the trip and the place only took cash and the school was not doing anything to help, except tell the kids about it and the price. Which was something like $5. I told my Mom and she handed me a $5 bill, plus a quarter, which confused my 3rd grade brain. She said to due to some strange words "sales tax, which was 5% in my state at the time. Got to school that morning and all my classmates were proud that they had their $5 bill, but none seemed to have a quarter. So I kept the presence of my quarter a secret and was a little embarrassed about it. Yes, I was young and stupid. Now I am old and stupid.

When it came time to purchase the whatsit at the end of the day, me and one other of my classmates produced a quarter to buy it. The teachers and chaperones had to cover the sales tax for the other 20 kids and they were pissed.

I went to school and learned a lesson that has stuck with me for nearly 50 years.

[–] theneverfox@pawb.social 16 points 5 days ago

We just think about the base price, but the taxes. Then at checkout you're told "oh, that number you had in your head? Add 5-20% more as a surprise"

It's a terrible system, very anti consumer. You never get used to it

Oh, and it also has the fun side effect of making sure nothing ends on a dollar amount

[–] aceshigh@lemmy.world 9 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I think in pretax numbers and just expect the final price to be higher - how much higher I have no idea because not everything is taxed. It was a major pain in the ass when I only had cash cus I never knew how much to take with me. Now I only use credit cards so it’s much better.

[–] qyron@sopuli.xyz 7 points 6 days ago (5 children)

I think that builds into the credit card trap.

You should not need to guess-timate how much you're going to spend, that is the issue.

If you want to pay in cash, that's it. Pick up the items, add it in your head, that's it. Witholding how much you are really going to spend by not applying all charges holds you hostage.

Yes, you can just put it to your card and pay it later but why?

[–] HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

It may help, but credit cards aren't the reason.

Sales tax is something that can be charged at all levels of government, including individual cities in some states. It is easier to advertise one pre-tax price than deal with the variance of advertising post-tax prices.

[–] qyron@sopuli.xyz 5 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

And I keep thinking my country's tax system is weird.

No way! That is ridiculous. That is essentially equating to create tax havens inside your own country. What is stopping people from high taxation states to just go for a shopping spree on a non-taxation one? Or even a city or town? Nothing. It makes no sense.

My country has a mainland and two autonomous regions. All taxation is designed centrally. VAT, special taxes, income, private and corporate, vehicles, land, house, etc, everything is established centrally. The autonomous regions do have the freedom to fine tune the end % of tax but really nothing else. They can't exempt a tax, just because.

[–] Prismaarchives@lemmy.ml 5 points 6 days ago (1 children)

shopping spree on a non-taxation one

You have discovered Delaware.

[–] qyron@sopuli.xyz 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)
[–] HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 4 points 6 days ago (6 children)

It gets worse.

A lot of incorporation law is done at the state level, so most corporations are incorporated in Delaware where there are no corporate taxes and specialized corporate law courts.

A lot of credit and gift cards are out of South Dakota because that state has favorable credit card and gift card laws.

A lot of the laws of the country are written at the state level by design.

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[–] gravitywell@sh.itjust.works 12 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

As someone who lives in one of the states without sales tax, i used to hate it because nothing would ever be exact change, id see a candy bar listed for $1 but actually ifa 1.05 or aomething and now Ive gotta deal with a bunch of coins. Arizona iced tea for 99c... Nah bro you still need aother 12 cents (gotta pay the bottle deposit too)

Its not as annoying now that i pay for most stuff with a card, but in still resent all the other states that force people to do math.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 6 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (2 children)

We don't include the tax. You just expect what you pay at the till to be some percent more than the sum of shelf prices. It's a known number, 5% where I live except on a few untaxed items (which I should mention isn't the US, just nearby).

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[–] trk@aussie.zone 7 points 6 days ago (1 children)

We did a trip to the US that covered coast to coast by plane and then 5000k of driving back to the centre... And their pretend pricing sucked.

Every state we went to advertised a price, but what you actually paid varied by heaps.

Bought some clothes that were something like $700USD by the tag, and had $1000USD on hand... Which wasn't enough once they rang it up! Wtf?

[–] masto@lemmy.masto.community 17 points 6 days ago

That’s just called being scammed. There’s no 43% sales tax anywhere in the US.

[–] RBWells@lemmy.world 9 points 6 days ago

I did "tax included" when I sold stuff but it's unusual. Yes we know there is tax, I know the tax rate here and it's not difficult to calculate the total. Food, like groceries, is not taxable here.

I will say though - my husband wants a car and I keep having to remind him to gross up the price when he sends examples because on big things it is a big charge.

[–] sobchak@programming.dev 5 points 6 days ago (2 children)

A lot of convenience stores around me don't even have any prices shown on many items. Drives me crazy, but I guess many people are used to it? Sales tax is usually around 7% in most places I've been to, so if I know the price of an item, I know, roughly, what to expect.

[–] qyron@sopuli.xyz 7 points 6 days ago (3 children)

No prices? Things are getting worse.

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No price means I won't buy. Because it means probably 200% mark up at least

[–] waitaminute@midwest.social 4 points 6 days ago

Ignore it.

Sometimes I am like egh, that’s annoying and more than I expected and then carry on with buying whatever it is. But that is a more recent thing, now that am being more frugal. For like a decade I would say I never acknowledged it or thought about it.

[–] bandwidthcrisis@lemmy.world 5 points 6 days ago

I've seen people discussing a cellphone offer that's like "$800 but you get $800 of bill credits over 24 months" and they would say it's a free phone. But you'd pay $800 plus tax up front and you'd not get that tax back.

Still a good deal, but it showed how many people were blind to the tax.

[–] SteposVenzny@beehaw.org 5 points 6 days ago

An extra six percent isn’t really the difference between a big purchase and a small one, so it’s pretty much just background noise for me. I know to leave some wiggle room if my budget is tight but don’t make the effort to calculate my technical maximum. Worst case scenario I get one less item than I planned.

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 4 points 6 days ago

Yeah, it's shitty, but we also know it's gonna happen. It's not like it's a surprise. Sometimes you might get a little extra sticker shock but it's not as underhanded as it seems unless you're very new to the process. The same way we tip, I just assume I'm gonna pay ~30% more than the price due to tax and tip.

I've also never had to budget so much that the specifics of the tax mattered to me, like I've never had to stretch money like that, so that could be part of it.

[–] deadcatbounce@reddthat.com 4 points 6 days ago

As far as I can tell, once the question about price is asked, they will make a remark about how awful the Republicans or Democrats are (depending on their leanings).

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