Roland Perry wrote:
at 13:52:10 on Mon, 23 Jan 2012, Adam H. Kerman remarked:

Here in many (if not all) parts of Europe, the price that you pay for
something already has relevant taxes figured in.

Yet here in the United States, when prices for airline travel and hotel
rooms are stated, they included taxes. In Europe, travel prices are
more often stated without all taxes included.

Travel itself doesn't have any "sales tax",

It's a service tax, true.

although some airlines dress up various items like airport and security
fees as "tax and charges". But so do USA airlines.

That's a point. Sometimes there have been fuel surcharges. There are
often baggage surcharges.

Many hotels in tourist spots have a "surprise" city tourist/hotel tax,
but not in the UK.

That would be unheard of in the United States. Various places have plenty
of taxes on hotel charges, but these would be quoted up front.

"Adam H. Kerman" wrote in message ...

Neil Williams wrote:
On Sun, 22 Jan 2012 19:14:58 -0700, Robert Neville wrote:

That's because VAT is standard across a country. In the US there are
thousands of taxing districts in every state, each with it's own adder
to the base rate.

Presumably only one applies to any given shop?

Different sales tax rates apply to different goods in my state. Also, in
my state, newspapers and magazines are not taxed. It's really obnoxious
to impose all these high sales tax collection costs on merchants.

Ah well with VAT they do dangle a bit of a carrot in the shape of relief on
your purchases, which does include fuel. That can add to quite a bit of
discount, the costs of fuel being what it is in Europe these days.

There are different rates of VAT for different goods, though the UK has very
few variations - 8% on domestic fuel and various things that ladies have fo
buy and 20% on nearly everything else.

In message , at 16:49:20 on Mon, 23 Jan
2012, Adam H. Kerman remarked:
Many hotels in tourist spots have a "surprise" city tourist/hotel tax,
but not in the UK.

That would be unheard of in the United States. Various places have plenty
of taxes on hotel charges, but these would be quoted up front.

Maybe that's why Expedia is so bad about warning people. They should get
out more.
--
Roland Perry

On 23-Jan-12 02:09, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 15:36:16 on Sun, 22 Jan
2012, Stephen Sprunk remarked:
Major payment cards are accepted by thousands, if not millions, of
merchants all over the world. They are arguably more universal than
cash, which is mostly limited to a single country or group of countries.

There are also millions of merchants who don't accept credit cards.

Of course. But there are millions more merchants that won't accept
foreign cash, or at least not _all_ foreign cash.

And plenty of folks in far flung countries who'll take dollars in cash.

US Dollars and, to a lesser extent, Euros are a special case. Even so,
they're still probably not as widely accepted outside their home
countries as payment cards.

But for buying big ticket items in expensive shops, a credit card is
more widely accepted than random foreign cash, I agree.

Even domestic cash may not be all that welcome for big-ticket items due
to fears of counterfeiting, regulations intended to stop money
laundering, the cost of securing and transporting large amounts of cash,
etc.

Also, my experience has been that while foreign cash may be accepted, it
is with a horrible exchange rate; one only does that for the sake of
convenience, and the time to separately exchange foreign cash for
domestic cash would be well worth it for any significant transaction.

S

--
Stephen Sprunk "God does not play dice." --Albert Einstein
CCIE #3723 "God is an inveterate gambler, and He throws the
K5SSS dice at every possible opportunity." --Stephen Hawking

On Jan 23, 6:00*pm, "Paul Rigg" wrote:

Different sales tax rates apply to different goods in my state.

Not a reason not to include them in the price. My point was that if
customer X enters the shop, then customer Y enters the shop, and both
buy the same thing, both would be charged the same for it?

Neil

On 23-Jan-12 08:06, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
Stephen Sprunk wrote:
And then there's Congress's Internet sales tax moratorium, so the same
product ordered by the same buyer from the same seller may by taxed if
the order was by phone or mail but not if online.

You misstated that. State sales taxes are collected on in-state sales;
there is no federal jurisdiction to impose a moratorium. Use taxes are
levied on interstate sales.

You well know that "sales tax" is almost always an abbreviation of
"sales and use tax", and the fact we have two different terms is a relic
of politicians playing games to get around the obvious
unconstitutionality of what they really wanted to do.

Congress's a moratorium was on the collection of "use tax" on internet
purchases, which is also of questionable constitutionality, but since
the vast majority of customers never paid it anyway, nobody seems to care.

S

--
Stephen Sprunk "God does not play dice." --Albert Einstein
CCIE #3723 "God is an inveterate gambler, and He throws the
K5SSS dice at every possible opportunity." --Stephen Hawking

On 23-Jan-12 07:58, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
John Levine wrote:
My understanding is that most prices in the US are quoted net of tax
for purely political reasons, that the tax sceptics in the legislature
want everyone to be aware of what the tax rate is, and how much the
state is collecting.

I see nothing contrary about giving the consumer actual useful information
about how his bill breaks down.

That same goal could be easily achieved by requiring merchants to list
the taxes paid _after_ the total.

So, rather than this:

Item 1 $1.99
Item 2 $2.99
Item 3 $3.99
Item 4 $4.99
Subtotal $13.96
Sales Tax $1.15
Total $15.11

You could have this:

Item 1 $2.15
Item 2 $3.24
Item 3 $4.32
Item 4 $5.40
Total $15.11
(Sales Tax $1.15)

Of course, merchants aren't dumb, so you'd likely see this in practice:

Item 1 $2.00
Item 2 $3.25
Item 3 $4.25
Item 4 $5.50
Total $15.00
(Sales Tax $1.14)

All the same information is there, but now the customer can figure out
the exact amount due _before_ he gets to the register, and it's a round
amount that will be easy to have ready or make change for. Everyone wins.

S

--
Stephen Sprunk "God does not play dice." --Albert Einstein
CCIE #3723 "God is an inveterate gambler, and He throws the
K5SSS dice at every possible opportunity." --Stephen Hawking

On 23-Jan-12 02:30, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 20:04:35 on Sun, 22 Jan
2012, Stephen Sprunk remarked:
there's something really comforting about knowing that the price
shown on the tag is actually the exact amount of money you'll have to
fork over.

Indeed. On my first trip overseas, that was one of the most welcome
aspects of shopping: you know exactly what you're going to pay. This
also encourages round-number pricing ($40 vs $39.95)--something that is
pointless under a pre-tax pricing model.

Burger King have a [USA] nation-wide offer of $1.99 at the moment.

I fail to see the point you are making.

S

--
Stephen Sprunk "God does not play dice." --Albert Einstein
CCIE #3723 "God is an inveterate gambler, and He throws the
K5SSS dice at every possible opportunity." --Stephen Hawking

On 23-Jan-12 07:52, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
wrote:
On 22/01/2012 21:52, Stephen Sprunk wrote:
There's also the time it takes to count the customer's money and, if
applicable, make change. This is particularly bad in the US since taxes
are not included in the price, so the total due is rarely known before
the order is rung up.

Why is that, I wonder? I think that is also the case with the GST and
PST in Canada.

Here in many (if not all) parts of Europe, the price that you pay for
something already has relevant taxes figured in.

Yet here in the United States, when prices for airline travel and hotel
rooms are stated, they included taxes. In Europe, travel prices are
more often stated without all taxes included.

What? I rarely see airline and hotel prices quoted with taxes included
in the US.

Motor fuel prices are stated with all taxes included.

Yes, and I suspect that's required by law. The question is, why can't
we do that for other products?

S

--
Stephen Sprunk "God does not play dice." --Albert Einstein
CCIE #3723 "God is an inveterate gambler, and He throws the
K5SSS dice at every possible opportunity." --Stephen Hawking

On 23-Jan-12 11:26, Neil Williams wrote:
On Jan 23, 6:00 pm, "Paul Rigg" wrote:
Different sales tax rates apply to different goods in my state.

Not a reason not to include them in the price. My point was that if
customer X enters the shop, then customer Y enters the shop, and both
buy the same thing, both would be charged the same for it?

Not in the US, unfortunately. There are various buyers that do not have
to pay sales taxes, either at all or for certain uses. So, even
customers who buy the same things in the same place may not pay the same
tax.

The more logical solution would be for everyone to pay the tax and for
exempt buyers to get a credit/refund. That would also seem to be less
susceptible to fraud while greatly simplifying things for merchants.

S

--
Stephen Sprunk "God does not play dice." --Albert Einstein
CCIE #3723 "God is an inveterate gambler, and He throws the
K5SSS dice at every possible opportunity." --Stephen Hawking