r/comics • u/tinyviewcomics tinyviewcomics • Aug 11 '26

OC "Americentricity" by Itchy Feet

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415

u/Hugh_Mann84 Aug 11 '26

Europe has sales tax. It's just already a part of the stated price.

261

u/CunningLinguist8198 Aug 11 '26

Which just makes more sense. Why have prices even listed if the amount you have to pay is only loosely related?

74

u/kelldricked Aug 11 '26

Because that way its harder for consumers to see how much they are actually spending on shit, especially if there are diffrent taxbracets for diffrent products.

The EU gets a lot of critique and loads of it is valid. But consumerprotection/consumerrights are often carried by the EU. And due to its size many producers cant ignore them. Loads car that get sold in the US have better safety standards due to european regulations. Its cheaper to make one standardize version and produce it a fuckload then to set up a whole diffrent product line only to change minor details.

5

u/NorwegianCollusion Aug 12 '26

However, I love how Kinder eggs exist in two variants: Half egg with external surprise and Full egg with internal surprise. Because that is a stupid law.

I mean, what's next? No files in cakes allowed? Inconcievable.

2

u/Da1UHideFrom Aug 12 '26

The actual reason is local taxes are different depending on your location. A cell phone at a big box store costs $100. The effective tax in county A is 9.5% and the effective tax rate in county B is 10%. It's easier for the store to create a single price tag for that product across all its stores and add the tax rather than create a different tag for every county and town that has a different tax rate.

6

u/kelldricked Aug 12 '26

Yeah you think the EU has uniform saletaxes across its 30+ member countries?

Hell within my country there are a bunch of diffrent sale taxes across diffrent products. Its really easy and simple for companys to just make diffrent price tags, something which they already often do due to local diffrence in competition, economics and climate. Especially now with dynamic pricing.

Thats just the bs they tell you to hold back consumer rights

-2

u/Da1UHideFrom Aug 12 '26

Yeah you think the EU has uniform saletaxes across its 30+ member countries?

No. I never made such a claim. I just said it was easier for the company to make one price tag for one product. They may have the ability to create a different price tag for each local, county, and state sales tax but they aren't mandated by law to do so. Corporations are always going to take the easiest path for themselves.

3

u/Intelligent-Gold-563 Aug 13 '26

Then explain why they do it in the EU ? If they always take the easiest path, why do they print different price tag for each EU country but not in the USA ?

0

u/Da1UHideFrom Aug 13 '26

The EU has different laws.

3

u/Intelligent-Gold-563 Aug 13 '26

Then maybe the US should do the same

3

u/Dreyven Aug 12 '26

But the price tag isn't on the product. It's on the shelf.

1

u/Da1UHideFrom Aug 12 '26

Let's say you own Walmart. Walmart has 5,200 locations in the US. You sell a product, like the MacBook Neo, which is the same price everywhere in the US because the price is set by Apple, not Walmart. You have to create a price tag to display in the shelf at your stores.

Is it easier to make a single tag that says $699+ tax and send that to 5,200 stores or to make 5,200 unique tags because the tax varies depending on state, county, and city? Multiply that problem across all the other products you sell in your stores.

2

u/Dreyven Aug 13 '26

It's 2026. Do you think Walmart is hand painting price tags in a secret secure facility hidden underground somewhere in the country? I'm not sending 5200 pieces of paper all across the country for a price tag.

You scan the article in the store, it tells you the price it's supposed to be in your store and click on print and it prints the price tag. I'd be shocked if this isn't how it's done.

And that's for when you don't have digital price tags which don't even get printed anymore.

0

u/Da1UHideFrom Aug 13 '26

You've never worked retail and it shows.

2

u/hiuslenkkimakkara Aug 12 '26

In the Soviet Union they went even further, and they stamped the price on products at the factory.

-1

u/-im-your-huckleberry Aug 12 '26

So, kind of. The U.S. has a sales tax. The tax is meant to be paid by the end user of a product. You, the consumer, are paying the tax. Stating it as an add-on lets you know how much tax you are paying. You can even record all the tax you paid and then deduct the amount from your income on your taxes, if you itemize.

Most of the rest of the world has a VAT. A value added tax should really be called a PET, or profit extracted tax. Every step in the supply chain that adds value to the product, or more exactly every step that extracts some profit, pays a portion of the total VAT. The manufacturers, distributors, and retailers in the chain pay the tax.

Functionally, it's the same. The tax is passed on to you the customer in both systems. In VAT though, the tax is technically something that the supply chain pays vs you the consumer. Placing the sales tax only on the final checkout total subtly makes consumers less aware of the true cost, but including the VAT in the stated price subtly hides the true tax amount.

-8

u/RogerRabbot Aug 12 '26

There's not different tax brackets for items what? Sales tax is flat across the state

3

u/dontbajerk Aug 12 '26

Nah, the state one gets combined with county and city sales taxes in many places.

93

u/mr_doms_porn Aug 11 '26

It enables companies to advertise one price across many tax jurisdictions. You can run nationwide ads that display price. If you do it the european way you'd need to make different ads for each tax jurisdiction.

66

u/Xtr0 Aug 12 '26

That doesn't stop stores from putting the final price on the shelf.

0

u/Quaytsar Aug 12 '26

People are morons and would be mad if the price on the shelf didn't match the ad.

41

u/MagicBlaster Aug 11 '26

I don't know why you would think that...

Stores don't even have the same prices for the same items in two locations in the same city let alone jurisdictions.

It's even more nonsense when you know that Safeway has digital tags so they could trivially update them even in different regions if that was the problem.

5

u/unidentifiedfish55 Aug 12 '26

Ah yes. We all remember the "PRICE VARIES BY JURISDICTION!! dollar foot loooooooong" Subway commercials back in the day.

1

u/MagicBlaster Aug 14 '26

I mean it always was, it was always $5 (plus tax), so why do they care if the sign in the store now says 5.40 or whatever instead, that was always the amount of money you would give them in the end...

1

u/unidentifiedfish55 Aug 14 '26

so why do they care if the sign in the store now says 5.40

I know it was 2 full days ago, but read the original comment you responded to. If it's $5.40, you can't do a nation-wide advertisement for $5. That was the argument here.

0

u/MagicBlaster Aug 15 '26

The $5 dollars was always a lie though, it was always 5 dollars plus tax. Adding the actual number that you will actually pay to the sign changes nothing.

1

u/unidentifiedfish55 Aug 15 '26

I disagree. Having to make changes to your commercial for every single jurisdiction so it has the right price, with tax included, would be a giant hassle and change things quite a bit

14

u/Banaantje04 Aug 11 '26

European countries just have the same tax across the country. Also, can't the company just have different pricing before tax such that the eventual price after tax is the same in each place? Not adding tax in the price because those poor poor companies and whatever will they do now that they have to add tax in their marketing, insane argument imo. 

28

u/fuzzylm308 Aug 11 '26

But the US doesn't have the same tax across the whole country. Sales tax varies not only by state, but also by county. And within counties, cities and special purpose districts can also introduce their own additional sales taxes. There are 11,000 distinct sales tax jurisdictions in the US, which range from 0% all the way up to 11-12%. So no it's not really feasible for a company to price its products differently in 11,000 different places so that the final cost works out the same everywhere.

29

u/Ilesa_ Aug 11 '26 edited Aug 11 '26

The price varies from region to region in Europe too (at least in some countries, idk about all of them), and from city to city. Because we also have local taxes.

Doesn't prevent us from indicating the full price, tho.

-23

u/Appropriate_Link_551 Aug 11 '26

do they not teach percentages in europe or is it just too hard for them to do math in their head?

18

u/Ilesa_ Aug 11 '26

Do they not teach basic courtesy in the US or is it just too hard to talk normaly ?

Not displaying the full price is stupid. Have absolutely nothing to do with maths.

-17

u/Appropriate_Link_551 Aug 11 '26

truncating “maths” doesn’t really work because the word is not “mathsamatics”. If you take out the middle letters, you need an apostrophe.

cannot->can’t
mathematics->math’s

Abbreviations in English can be tough if it’s not your first language

16

u/BesottedScot Aug 11 '26

Maths is correct in English everywhere except America and Canada just about.

We use maths as it matches words such as statistics and heuristics. So no need for an apostrophe. Also because it tends to be considered a collective noun encompassing algebra, calculus etc.

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u/Ilesa_ Aug 11 '26

Isn't maths correctly used in British, though ? I think math's is a very USan thing

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u/CunningLinguist8198 Aug 11 '26

I think it's more that European legislators care (more) about customers while American legislators care more about business owners. Hiding the tax makes products seem cheaper, even if you do the math

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u/PassiveTheme Aug 11 '26

It's not about percentages being too difficult. It's about the price listed being the price you pay. It never occurred to them to do it any differently.

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u/Appropriate_Link_551 Aug 11 '26

mental math, like most skills, is “use it or lose it”. You can still use your fingers until you get the hang of it!

20

u/Charming-Clock-3651 Aug 11 '26

What are you trying to say? That customers should have to calculate sales tax because it's better for their brains....?

11

u/callmeacow Aug 11 '26

It's unnecessary friction

8

u/PassiveTheme Aug 11 '26

I can do the percentages easily. I just don't need to.

3

u/MacPooPum Aug 12 '26

What a really low IQ take. Why walk down the stairs slowly if you can just jump down immediately? Why chew food if you can swallow it hole?

Why do I need to do math in my head in America only, when the rest of the world doesn't have this problem? Because it is a problem. It's a maths problem. One that even third world countries have sorted out.

1

u/Appropriate_Link_551 Aug 12 '26

I do envy their special education, it appears to be working exceptionally well here ;P

2

u/Stuck_Revolver Aug 11 '26

Mostly onboard, but isn’t this the legit perfect thing to do with the horror show that is AI and the digital sales tags at stores? Instead of being a terrible chatbot and surge pricing, they could categorize each of those sales tax zones in their system to automatically add the sales tax to items on the tags.

2

u/SwampOfDownvotes Aug 11 '26

It's less about them not being able to do, and more like why would the company want to do it? Say you advertise its $20 after tax across the entire country, well to make that work, you would have to discount the cost in places with higher sales tax so that's less revenue/profit for the company. Why would they want to give some people a 12% discount? They don't keep the sales tax.

1

u/Nymethny Aug 12 '26

No need to rely on AI for that, it's a fairly simple algorithm that could be implemented very easily. But unless the government forces companies to do that (i.e. pass consumer protection laws), companies have no reason to do it.

1

u/Stuck_Revolver Aug 12 '26

It really has gotten strange hasn’t it? Asking why a company would do what their customers want? To make it easier to buy their products comfortably? I’m sure there’s an Econ principle here, but I don’t know the name. I want to know how much companies are making from stocks and manipulation vs just plain selling a product or service. It feels like no one just says “here, it’s a good thing at a decent price.”

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u/MileHigh_FlyGuy Aug 11 '26

I think you underestimate the margins on some products.

2

u/account312 Aug 12 '26

I think you mean overestimate.

1

u/MileHigh_FlyGuy Aug 12 '26

Typical brick and mortar stores have a margin of 3% to 5%

2

u/Chicken2nite Aug 11 '26

Considering interstate commerce is a thing, it would be difficult to market to out-of-state customers at the same time as in-state customers while competing on price with both in-state and out-of-state competitors.

In Canada, the store charges the sales taxes applicable to where the customer is. Each province sets their own PST, while everywhere has the federal GST. Since Alberta doesn’t have a PST, this means that storefronts in other provinces can compete for Alberta’s customers on an even playing field and vice versa.

Since the location of the customer is only really determined when they enter a delivery/billing address at checkout, there wouldn’t be much of a practicable method to advertise an accurate price on their website if it including however many different PST/HST tax rates in the listed price.

4

u/account312 Aug 12 '26

it would be difficult to market to out-of-state customers at the same time as in-state customers while competing on price with both in-state and out-of-state competitors.

So what? Advertisements don't have to be broadcast to large regions. They don't even have to include prices.

1

u/Chicken2nite Aug 12 '26

Who broadcasts prices in advertisements? By marketing, I wasn’t speaking to actively advertising to them but to engaging in commerce with them.

I guess pizza places and other fast food restaurants, in which case the ads are paid for by corporate and the franchisees are expected to have that advertised price.. Manufacturers also have their suggested retail price (MSRP) as well as a minimum sale price (selling below which can get you in trouble with your supplier) which would make it tricky to implement.

If i’m searching the internet for a widget, I might comparison shop or use a metasearch website like Board Game Oracle which compares the price and availability across many stores.

You might think that having the taxes included in the price would lower the level of obfuscation, but that’s not necessarily the case.

So long as states, provinces, and US cities are able to set their own sales tax, it would make it difficult to have a national storefront on your website with the tax included in the listed price.

Google and other search engines will include the price on the search results of a store selling an item, and if the price is conditional on what state or city you’re in, then what price do you think should be displayed?

How much do you want to be tracked by both the search engine and the website to find the best real price?

6

u/FreeDarkChocolate Aug 12 '26

So long as states, provinces, and US cities are able to set their own sales tax, it would make it difficult to have a national storefront on your website with the tax included in the listed price.

There are businesses that operate across various EU countries with different VAT already, that already have websites set up for the different jurisdictions they operate in, and already tailor ads to the market they've ordered the web ads for. They already do this.

How much do you want to be tracked by both the search engine and the website to find the best real price?

By this logic it must be impossible to shop online anonymously in the EU, but that is not the case. They can do it and they already do. Advertised prices can include taxes. Somehow entities as small as individual creators up to multinational conglomerates are able to deal with it over there and, while that's a bit more overhead for the business, all the consumers (so, every single person) gets the benefit of all-in pricing. Some edge case exceptions, sure, but irrelevant in scale.

-2

u/[deleted] Aug 11 '26

[deleted]

6

u/CanadianODST2 Aug 12 '26

You could have one.

It’d just be a federal sales tax. That wouldn’t stop states or counties from having their own

-1

u/TheDimmadome Aug 12 '26

"Insane argument imo"

I don't think you really get the size difference between these countries. There are 12,000+ regions with different sales tax needs, Texas alone has more than 1600.

What do you think is the easier option, marketing one price or researching price points for every state, county, city, or districts tax points in the country?

3

u/Banaantje04 Aug 12 '26

I think it's insane that the companies are put in front of consumers. If you want to put a price in your ads, go research, consumers should see the price they will pay. 

1

u/DogBarf00 Aug 12 '26

But not all buyers of goods pay sales tax.

1

u/Banaantje04 Aug 12 '26

All consumers do. Companies can just deduct it from their tax; that's what they do in countries that include sales tax in the price. I assume that in the US companies still have to pay the tax but get it back as well right? I wouldn't think anyone selling things would have the responsibility to check who is and is not eligible for sales tax exemption?

1

u/DogBarf00 Aug 12 '26 edited Aug 12 '26

Nope, they don't pay sales tax at all. Sales tax is intended to tax the sale of a good to its final end-user, otherwise the tax would compound at every transaction, greatly inflating the price of the final good. Because taxes are always passed on. Not everyone buying stuff is the final end user. Costco and Sam's Club has business member hours to process these sales tax free transactions. Home Depot, Lowe's, and other home improvement stores have Pro checkouts for this reason. There are entire businesses where you need to be a business owner, with some sort of state issued resale certificate or business tax ID, to even be allowed to shop there. Such as restaurant supply stores, salon supply stores, cleaning supply stores, building material suppliers that only sell to contractors.

Then they are non-profits that don't pay sales tax either. Could be an old lady buying coffee and tea for bible study at the church or could be your social club for your hobby buying food and drinks for your annual bbq.

As for charging a business the sales tax then refunding it. That just sounds like a nightmare for the government to manage and a nightmare for the business owner to plan for in their cash flows. It is much better to have that cash free and moving in the economy instead of moving form the business to the government back to the business for no reason.

1

u/Banaantje04 Aug 12 '26

I know how sales tax works. Are you saying that if a company is buying stuff at, let's say Walmart, the cashier has to verify that the person at checkout is buying for a company and thus does not have to pay sales tax? Feels like this is asking for mistakes. 

Of course B2B doesn't have VAT and  has verification that you're a company before you can buy something there. It works like that where I live as well (somewhere in Europe) but not all shopping is done from B2B companies. 

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u/BTechUnited Aug 12 '26

Ok then, how about Australia which has a universal GST across the entire continent, multiple states and territories, as opposed to the insanity of different taxation per county.

1

u/Mrwhale33 Aug 12 '26

I mean you’re agreeing lol. Australia has the GST across the country. America has more individualized rates depending on the needs of the county/state/region. Rural counties without public transportation don’t need a portion of the sales tax to go towards it for example.

1

u/CanadianODST2 Aug 12 '26

That’d just be federal sales tax.

Which wouldn’t impact local sales taxes

1

u/NoAngel815 Aug 12 '26

The difference is the US doesn't have a national sales tax, it's done by the individual states. We also have some states that don't have any sales tax. You need to think of it less like Germany or Australia and more like the European Union. We're 50 different little countries in a trench coat.

2

u/FreeDarkChocolate Aug 12 '26

The difference is the US doesn't have a national sales tax, it's done by the individual states.

If the Czech Republic can have all-in pricing, then so can NC. If Denmark can, then so can MD. If there are city or county taxes, then any business so lucky to be big enough to have multiple locations can just deal with it and it's a convenience benefit for small businesses. Different business locations within the same tax jurisdiction can already vary in pretax pricing (shipping goods to a store in one part of a state can be much cheaper than to another) so it's not like this is stopping them.

1

u/TheDimmadome Aug 12 '26

Okay then, the entire continent with 1/20th the size of urban development and 1/12th the population density has different tax needs then the us? How much is the population spread over that "entire continent" compared to the US?

Counties have the ability to impose specific taxes because theres such a difference in income levels, average ages, consumer spending, local/state government spending, infrastructure, etc. There's so many over so much more space that they have more individual budgets and financial needs.

2

u/FreeDarkChocolate Aug 12 '26

Okay then, the entire continent with 1/20th the size of urban development and 1/12th the population density has different tax needs then the us? How much is the population spread over that "entire continent" compared to the US?

This is bizarre. Consider a single state that has similar population and size as some particular European country. If it is possible for the European country to have price-displayed-is-price-paid, then so it is for that US state (Czech Republic and NC, Denmark and MD...). By extension, then anywhere in the US.

The annoyance to the business for having to divy up advertising specific by market if they are so lucky and privileged to have multiple locations spanning multiple tax jurisdictions is to simply be part of their cost of doing business. As other comments have said, pricing can already vary even without taxes from place to place so it's not like they don't already have to deal with it.

4

u/Victernus Aug 11 '26

But the advertised price is a lie, so who does that actually benefit?

5

u/account312 Aug 12 '26

Not consumers, that's for sure.

2

u/moralglove Aug 12 '26

Prices are generally listed as ’$XX.XX +tax’

2

u/Victernus Aug 12 '26

And... who does that benefit?

1

u/moralglove Aug 12 '26

Someone else already replied to that.

1

u/MileHigh_FlyGuy Aug 11 '26

Which can be unique depending on different areas of a single city.

1

u/CunningLinguist8198 Aug 12 '26

I'd be fine with forcing that cost onto companies. First, because fuck 'em. Second, because small businesses are a good thing, but large businesses often become cancerous. And third, because consumers should be more important than somebody's bottom line.
Swallow that extra cost. Make your manager work an extra twenty minutes to make sure the right flyer is going to the right district. Not like that manager was actually doing anything in that time anyways.

1

u/Kasawery24 Aug 12 '26

Hmmm. So they make law to make it easier for companies to sell more, not to make it easier for people. So American.

1

u/GuyASmith Aug 12 '26

In the US, we often have ads say, “Starting at $X.99,” as a way to say local prices vary. It’s expected just based on logistics and the store because some have different upcharge schemes for different goods, even for the same chain just shipping can add $0.50 easily.

1

u/AtlasNL Aug 12 '26

Do your stores stand up and walk across state lines frequently or something? A la Baba Yaga’s house?

1

u/Val_kyria Aug 11 '26

what companies actually do this? and there's a hundred workarounds that'd still allow this

stop making excuses for corporate laziness, demand better for yourselves

3

u/Moist_Drippings Aug 11 '26

Same reason the 99 cents at the end is common — it causes (some) people to round down and underestimate what they’re actually paying, so they buy more.

3

u/feel_my_balls_2040 Aug 11 '26

It makes the display price smaller. In Montreal they put prices for fruits and vegetables in lbs. because it would be a smaller number, even though we use the metric system. Also, a lot of products like meat, produce, milk and eggs don't have taxes and the milk even has fixed prices.

3

u/The_Affle_House Aug 11 '26

Because in the US, corporations have more rights than people. They wanted to have the ability to advertise fixed, general prices nationally, even though sales taxes vary by state (or even by municipality) and so they got their way. Now, displaying sticker prices sans tax, instead of the actual cost to the consumer, is completely normalized in basically all contexts.

2

u/curtcolt95 Aug 11 '26

gets even more confusing where I am in Canada because certain groceries are exempt from sales tax but there's very weird rules on it, literally never know what's actually going to have tax on it at checkout lol

1

u/CunningLinguist8198 Aug 12 '26

Oh, I know it. Every grocery trip is a gamble

2

u/Murrabbit Aug 12 '26

Why have prices even listed if the amount you have to pay is only loosely related?

It's part of the American character. We're always trying to fuck each-other over somehow so even normal legitimate transactions have to have some element of scam to 'em or it just doesn't feel right.

1

u/No_Research4416 Aug 11 '26

Yeah I suffered from sales tax a few times

1

u/Wuz314159 Aug 12 '26

because American cities are on state borders. (Greater Philadelphia has 4 different VAT rates) It's against the law to advertise one price, then charge another. So Price+Your Local Tax is how you avoid listing 4 different prices.

2

u/CunningLinguist8198 Aug 12 '26

First of all, that's very funny. Thank you for sharing.
I guess it's a fair point, but at the same time, how many stores are in different regions? Chains like Walmart or McDonald's, probably, but fuck 'em, they can eat the few percent cost.

1

u/joshuahtree Aug 12 '26

It's because the tax could be different depending on which part of the city you're in in the US. Take Kansas City for example, if you're in the Kansas half, you pay Kansas state, Wyandotte county, and Kansas City (Kansas) city taxes. But if you're in the Missouri half, you're paying Missouri state, one of four different counties, and Kansas City (Missouri) taxes. 

Now, how does Walmart accurately advertise the price of a big sale in Kansas City, let alone across the country?

3

u/CunningLinguist8198 Aug 12 '26

I'll give Walmart four options.
1) name the stores/county where a given price is, and label the ads in that county.
2) price higher and absorb the extra profits in low-tax counties.
3) price lower and absorb the cost in high-tax counties. You can't have a functioning brain cell and say that they can't afford it.
4) close down and let local stores operate, advertising their local prices to their local clients. Do everyone a favour.

But it is hilarious that your country is so dysfunctional that multiple cities have a variety of different tax districts. I guess it works for you, but it's still funny.
Not that I can laugh too hard, since there's more than one Canadian city in similar straits. Though as far as I know, they only ever have to deal with two sets of laws, not the patchwork collection you folks have.

1

u/joshuahtree Aug 12 '26

I'd argue it's not dysfunction, it's the government actually being accountable to their constituents (theoretically, obviously there's issues) 

As a consumer I hate all your options except 3, and Walmart hates 3 

And 4 doesn't actually solve the issue if there's more than one location for a local shop

And 3 doesn't work for smaller business which means you'd actually be propping up Walmart 

so the sales tax added at checkout is a happy compromise imo

1

u/uselesslogin Aug 12 '26

I imagine if the 23% VAT was not included in the price of things more people would have an issue with it. So in a way the US system is more transparent. Potentially as a result sales taxes are much lower than VAT.

1

u/Hugh_Mann84 Aug 12 '26

It isn't more transparent. Why would you care what percentage of the money you're paying goes to the store owner and what percentage goes to the government?

1

u/uselesslogin Aug 12 '26

So it isn't more transparent because I shouldn't care? I'd prefer less tax like this that puts the same burden on low income and high income families to one that puts more burden on higher income families. That is why I personally care and while others may disagree with me they should care too.

1

u/cutezombiedoll Aug 12 '26

Because sales tax varies state by state, and companies don’t want people thinking they’re charging more in one state than another. It makes nation wide advertising easier.

1

u/verrius Aug 11 '26

One core issue that I think most non-Americans don't understand is the US doesn't have a single nationwide sales tax; national sales tax or "VAT" or however you phrase it is 0%. However, this power is devolved down to every level of government. So most states will have a sales tax, some counties will add a separate one, some cities will have their own, and even within a city you'll have special sales tax districts from block to block. While this doesn't stop a single shop from integrating the sales tax into the prices on their shelves (usually...there's also fun with cold food items usually not being taxed, and hot food items having a tax, which does become a problem at say, a sandwich shop that offers hot and cold variants), it does suddenly mean that any store advertising a price for multiple stores runs into the risk that the price they are advertising would change if it includes tax.

3

u/CunningLinguist8198 Aug 12 '26

So the sandwich shop owner does the math. Still better for customers.

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u/hallucination9000 Aug 11 '26

Because the price tag is the price, the tax is just the government's tip.

19

u/Hugh_Mann84 Aug 11 '26

The price is what you pay. I don't see why anyone would be interested in anything except how much money they have to pay.

10

u/Scarlet_Lycoris Aug 11 '26

I don’t think most people actually care about how much the government takes from it. They just want to know how much they end up paying at the end of their grocery run…

3

u/echino_derm Aug 11 '26

The price is what you pay at the register, I don't care what accounting goes into it and where the money goes after I swipe my card.

The only reason we follow this method is so that companies can juice you for more money. If they had to adjust for taxes then they wouldn't be able to list attractive numbers without lowering their prices.

-2

u/Elegant_Run_8567 Aug 11 '26

But different countries have different taxes.

If a company has stores in different EU counties, you’re still paying the same price. They don’t make different price tags for different countries

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u/Hugh_Mann84 Aug 11 '26

You don't pay the same price, and they do make different price tags for different countries.

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u/Elegant_Run_8567 Aug 11 '26

Depends on the company

Pennys/Primark has their price tags on their clothes in Euros and Pounds. The Euro price stays the same no matter if it’s in Dublin or Barcelona

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u/Hugh_Mann84 Aug 11 '26

I don't think that's true? Just a casual browse through their webshops shows there's about a €1 difference for the same clothes.

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u/Elegant_Run_8567 Aug 11 '26

Online ordering has only been implemented this year, and does have some differences in prices

The stores don’t

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u/mikeputerbaugh Aug 11 '26

In Dublin the price is €10 and it breaks down to €8.13 net item price and €1.87 VAT.

In Barcelona the price is €10 too but it's €8,26 net item price and €1,74 VAT.

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u/Elegant_Run_8567 Aug 11 '26

So, you’re still seeing a €10 price tag and paying €10

Don’t see why this can’t be the case in the USA

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u/tescovaluechicken Aug 11 '26

It's because the US has different sales taxes in different towns, cities and counties. In one state you could have 20 different sales tax rates depending on where the store is located. Some places have no sales tax. If the price was the same everywhere, then businesses would just leave the places with high sales tax in order to increase profit. If the US had one sales tax rate or even just locked at the state level then the European system would work.

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u/Pushing_Prawn Aug 11 '26

Who does the system being so convoluted, benefit?

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u/ian9outof10 Aug 12 '26

Absolutely none of that explains why the price label on an item isn’t the final price you pay at the till.

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u/FreeDarkChocolate Aug 12 '26

Businesses already charge different base prices for the same product at different locations in the same tax jurisdiction (think "it's easier/cheaper to ship the goods to this store location than the one way in the far corner of it"). This is also the case in the EU, and yet they're able to have their labels be the price you pay. Supermarkets, petrol/gas stations, cinema chains, big and small restaurants, electronics...

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u/Scarlet_Lycoris Aug 11 '26

In fact prices for products do differ a lot within Europe. They in fact have different price tags, and even different labels (because of differing languages). That’s at the very least the case for groceries. Having different price tags is just such a non issue for a company that is wealthy enough to sell in multiple countries.

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u/Elegant_Run_8567 Aug 11 '26

Depends on the company though

For groceries, most chains with stores in different EU countries will have the same price tags

Clothing stores like Pennys/Primark definitely have the same tags throughout all their stores

I’ve never seen an issue with languages since a euro price is the same in Spanish as it is in Irish

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u/Scarlet_Lycoris Aug 11 '26 edited Aug 11 '26

for groceries most chains with stores in different EU countries will have the same price tags

I don’t see that at all tbh. I shop in germany, the netherlands, luxembourg and belgium. Especially LILD, Aldi, Delhaize and Albert Heijn can have very different price tags and prices between countries.

The language difference in tags becomes very apparent for me since most in my region they differ especially between Belgium and Germany. Though I don’t want to doubt your experience, there might be borders that deal with it differently. But here it’s very much their own tags and labels for each country most of the time.

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u/Admirable_Scene_5066 Aug 11 '26

Grocery stores from the same chain don't even have the same prices for the same products in the same country.

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u/Elegant_Run_8567 Aug 11 '26

What stores?

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u/Admirable_Scene_5066 Aug 11 '26

Any supermarket chain that works with franchise owners in Belgium (which is a lot of them). Deals are set by the chain, local owners decide what to do with the rest.

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u/Elegant_Run_8567 Aug 11 '26

Yes, apparently Belgium changes the prices. I wasn’t aware of that

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u/Hugh_Mann84 Aug 12 '26

Just go to any store on an island.

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u/Elegant_Run_8567 Aug 12 '26

I live pretty close to an island. The only have a small shop but prices aren’t any different

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u/Admirable_Scene_5066 Aug 11 '26

They most certainly do...

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u/Mekisteus Aug 11 '26

Oregon as well now.

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u/caoimhinoceallaigh Aug 12 '26

VAT is actually not the same as a sales tax. The latter is only paid by the final consumer while the former applies to every step in the production chain.

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u/MechanicStriking4666 Aug 13 '26

The funny thing is, we have the option in America to include tax in the price, but no one does because it makes things seem more expensive. That’s also why tipping is so prevalent.