But I do question the sanity of a country where you must pay tax on a
postage stamp. Is that still the case? It was in Vancouver in 1998. Oh,
and I mean federal VAT, not provincial taxes, as far as I recall.

There's a fairly basic economic principle that says that taxes cause
economic distortions, and the least distorting thing to do is to tax
everything the same. By that standard, GST is much less distorting
than any US sales tax.

I expect the Europeans question the sanity of a country with thousands
of different sales tax rates that vary by what you buy, where you buy
it, and even who you are, and that require that the clerk compute the tax
at the time of the sale.

R's,
John

On 24-Jan-12 06:26, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 16:32:22 on Mon, 23 Jan
2012, Stephen Sprunk remarked:
I knew you'd get there eventually.

Get there? I made that same point in the post you originally responded
to, which is why I didn't understand what point _you_ were making.

OK, to clear this up: you'll never get round-number pricing of $2 per
burger because the marketing people are in love with price points like
$1.99, and it's got nothing to do with sales tax. Burger prices in
tax-inclusive Europe often end in .99 too.

*shrug* I can live with that because I know that if I give them $2, it
will cover the cost of the burger. Whether I get a penny back is
irrelevant. It's also easy to mentally total the price of multiple
items, even if I have to add a penny to each price before doing so.

Also, we really need to get rid of the penny; the main reason we still
need them is because sales tax results in strange totals. There's
really no harm in pricing the above burger at $1.95, and similar moves
by other retailers would effectively remove the penny from circulation.

On the other hand, I am agreeing with you that quoting prices ex-tax in
the USA allows national advertising at a consistent price.

The tax issue affects even local advertising; within the coverage area
of a single TV/radio station or delivery area of a newspaper, the sales
tax rate can be non-trivially different.

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 24-Jan-12 06:42, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 12:32:45 on Tue, 24 Jan
2012, Roland Perry remarked:
I've got a bill in front of me here from the Hilton at LA airport and
every day has two line items:

Guest room $159.00
Room taxes $ 22.35

I expect the rate I was quoted was $159.00, as that sounds a much
rounder figure than $179.35

cough $181.35

Well, I think _that_ proves the point. :-)

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

I don't know what a transit system would do if it simply sold unlimited
ride passes with no credit bank to debit from. Does anyone know of
an example?

NYC Metrocard and paper commuter tickets. When the time's up, they
stop working.

The MTA recently added an EasyPay feature to Metrocards to reload
automatically from a credit card, but it's still quite possible to buy
your monthly pass card for cash from a vending machine.

R's,
John

In message , at 15:53:07 on Tue, 24 Jan
2012, John Levine remarked:
I expect the Europeans question the sanity of a country with thousands
of different sales tax rates that vary by what you buy, where you buy
it, and even who you are, and that require that the clerk compute the tax
at the time of the sale.

We had such a system in the UK, called "purchase tax". Dozens of
different rates. But it got simplified when we "joined Europe" and
converted to VAT (which has only about 4 rates in most places).
--
Roland Perry

Adam H. Kerman wrote:
John Levine wrote:

Proximity card. A tiny transponder and chip are built into the card.
RFID technology.

No, it's contactless EMV which is not RFID.

Please do at least a few milliseconds of research before guessing.

They aren't proximity cards? The standard is IEC 14443, which has
the "proximity cards" in its title. The standard doesn't define a
technology that uses radio frequencies in identification?

Sorry, I thought RFID could be used, generically, to describe any
proximity card that used radio frequencies in identification technology,
but perhaps you can explain how the term is incorrect when used to
describe technologies involving radio frequencies and identificaiton.

Perhaps I am misunderstanding entirely. Is sonar involved, perhaps?
Maybe infra-red?

Do tell us, John Levine, why I cannot use RFID generically to describe
a proximity card identification device that uses radio frequencies.

Sigh. Despite having told John Levine numerous times over the years that
he is NOT to send me messages in email in lieu of posting a followup on
Usenet, because private discussions with him are most unwelcome, John
Levine troubled me with a reply in email including several pretty lame
insults. There was, of course, no reference to the paragraph in the
standard giving notice that describing this technology, involving radio
frequencies and identification, as an RFID technology, would trigger
a series of rants and a great gnashing of teeth from John Levine.

I'm sure there is a reason why RFID isn't RFID when it's IEC 14443,
but we'll never learn it from John Levine.

I return you to your regularly scheduled Usenet flame wars.

Roland Perry wrote:
at 15:53:07 on Tue, 24 Jan 2012, John Levine remarked:

I expect the Europeans question the sanity of a country with thousands
of different sales tax rates that vary by what you buy, where you buy
it, and even who you are, and that require that the clerk compute the tax
at the time of the sale.

We had such a system in the UK, called "purchase tax". Dozens of
different rates. But it got simplified when we "joined Europe" and
converted to VAT (which has only about 4 rates in most places).

Does Europe pool collections from the VAT?

John Levine wrote:

I don't know what a transit system would do if it simply sold unlimited
ride passes with no credit bank to debit from. Does anyone know of
an example?

NYC Metrocard and paper commuter tickets. When the time's up, they
stop working.

John Levine, I know you are wont to accuse your opponent of having a
reading comprehension problem, but when you play games like taking quotes
out of context, you reveal to Usenet just exactly how immature you are.

That was a paragraph from a followup to hancock's question about zone
enforcement in various transit systems. Riding beyond the zone of a
monthly pass is irrelevant to when the pass expires.

In message , at 16:48:57 on Tue, 24 Jan
2012, Adam H. Kerman remarked:
several pretty lame insults

Is this misc.transport.pot.kettle ?
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 16:50:33 on Tue, 24 Jan
2012, Adam H. Kerman remarked:
I expect the Europeans question the sanity of a country with thousands
of different sales tax rates that vary by what you buy, where you buy
it, and even who you are, and that require that the clerk compute the tax
at the time of the sale.

We had such a system in the UK, called "purchase tax". Dozens of
different rates. But it got simplified when we "joined Europe" and
converted to VAT (which has only about 4 rates in most places).

Does Europe pool collections from the VAT?

Not into a central budget, each country still has control over how much
it charges, and for which classes of item (although there are some
universals like no VAT on essential foodstuffs).
--
Roland Perry