Does US pricing include tax?

[Vulkan HeStan]

For example the RX 6600 XT is $380 RRP, but if an American were to find one for that price (highly unlikely), would they pay $380 or $380+tax?

 

I know that taxes vary state by state, but does AMD/BestBuy etc. factor that into pricing?

[AbydosOne]

3 minutes ago, Vulkan HeStan said:

$380+tax

 

3 minutes ago, Vulkan HeStan said:

I know that taxes vary state by state, but does AMD/BestBuy etc. factor that into pricing?

No (generally). Occasionally you'll find deals to refund/waive taxes, but those are few and far between.

[Vulkan HeStan]

Just now, AbydosOne said:

 

No (generally). Occasionally you'll find deals to refund/waive taxes, but those are few and far between.

That's what my basic understanding of it is, because in the UK all prices are tax/hidden cost inclusive

 

In that case, I believe I've managed to snag an RX 6600 XT at RRP, and I'm feeling very smug rn

[Jurrunio]

Not just the US, most countries talk with pre-tax prices. You'll need to consider that yourself since some countries refund some of that tax if you meet certain requirements.

[Jeppes]

6 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

Not just the US, most countries talk with pre-tax prices. You'll need to consider that yourself since some countries refund some of that tax if you meet certain requirements.

Most of the civilized world have the full price on stickers.

[porina]

10 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

Not just the US, most countries talk with pre-tax prices.

Most countries I've visited are pretty much what you see is what you pay for a consumer transaction. The USA is the only obvious exception to that.

 

What you see is what you pay in: UK, Ireland, France, Germany, Denmark, Italy, Netherlands, Korea, Hong Kong (pre-'97), Turkey. Have visited more countries than that, but without a need to do a local transaction I don't have 1st hand experience.

 

I'm not sure about Japan, as it was a long time ago. They can list with and without tax rates on some products, but I think that is more informational. Street pricing is what you see shown. No sticker shock at payment that I recall.

 

 

Note I was keen to say consumer above. In the UK, sellers dealing business to business will typically list without tax as it is not due at that point. Another possible exemption is if you're temporarily visiting another country not in the same tax jurisdiction as your own, you may be able to re-claim the tax locally on certain goods. This is a pretty niche area as you are in essence treated as an exporter, hence the local tax was not due.

[RageTester]

Proper stores show how much the included tax is. As a part time accountant I really hate running into services that don't display taxes properly if at all. Not dealing with anything U.S. related though.

[Chris Pratt]

You're not likely to find $380, regardless, since that's the AMD suggested MSRP, but there's no reference version of the 6600XT. They're all partner cards, that will likely charge more than that. Yes, you will have to pay any state and local sales tax. The price is always pre-tax in the U.S. Also, you're very likely to have to pay a 25% tariff as well, if any part on the card is made in China. However, that will be worked into the pre-tax price, meaning you're really not going to see $380.

[Stahlmann]

Interesting to know. Never really thought as much and always expected it to be the same in the US as it is for most europeans.

 

In Germany (and most of europe afaik) all the prices you see are generally with tax included. So basically you pay the price that is listed. That also applies to international pricing when it comes to european countries.

 

I always thought our hardware is more expensive over here. For example a $300 CPU is also 300€ here, but when converting the price it should be more around 250€. But if you also factor in that the german price includes 47,90€ tax then it's priced about the same before tax.

[TetraSky]

57 minutes ago, porina said:

. The USA is the only obvious exception to that.

And Canada.
 

It makes the price of the items look lower than they really are and makes people more likely to pick more of them up. It's also easier for stores when the government decides to change the tax percentage. Which they do more often than you'd think. Though not as much lately, this is for Quebec : 

Spoiler

But as you can see here, as recently as 2019, taxes in Manitoba were actually reduced, too.

 

That said, at least things like unprocessed food has no tax on it.

 

 

Would love if the sticker price of items included the tax, but then, unless every single stores decided to do this at the same time, someone who doesn't know would go to Walmart, see the price is 15% cheaper on the shelves than the other smaller store that is putting taxes on their tag, and suddenly this smaller store loses all their customers to Walmart even though it's the same price in reality.

 

Not to mention, in Canada and the US each province/states have different taxes. That's an added logistical burden for companies who deal with both countries. Right now they just price everything in USD without tax and convert them to CAD for Canada(+import duties&taxes...). Simple. Easy. No risk of making a pricing mistake because someone mistyped a postal code or something.
 

[Roswell]

Not including sales tax in the price isn’t some capitalistic conspiracy, it’s a necessity. Sales tax varies wildly from state to state AND city to suburb. It can be 0% all the way to 12%.
 

National chains would need to keep thousands of databases for store pricing instead of just one and internet based retail would need to spam you with town/city selection on every visit before showing you pricing. It would be a nightmare.

 

This isn’t “capitalism bad mmkay”, it’s “local governments dictate sales tax”.

[porina]

29 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

And Canada.

So that's two countries, any others? Obviously two significant and influential countries, but I'm not getting the "most" feeling from previous poster.

 

29 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

It's also easier for stores when the government decides to change the tax percentage. Which they do more often than you'd think.

That will be a regional factor. VAT in UK is pretty stable. Current rate hasn't changed in over 10 years. The previous rate would have lasted over 20 years if it wasn't for a short term drop during the 2008 financial crisis.

 

29 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

That said, at least things like unprocessed food has no tax on it.

Yup, variable tax rates depending on the product/service are a thing here too. 

 

29 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

Would love if the sticker price of items included the tax, but then, unless every single stores decided to do this at the same time, someone who doesn't know would go to Walmart, see the price is 15% cheaper on the shelves than the other smaller store that is putting taxes on their tag, and suddenly this smaller store loses all their customers to Walmart even though it's the same price in reality.

For many things like this, even if it isn't the best thing (for the consumer) it doesn't change because it does require the efforts of everyone to do it. It has to be driven from the top, who arguably have little to gain from this so are not going to do anything about it.

[cacoe]

I've had to ask this before too because it's like... why are American prices so cheap? Turns out that (inflated prices aside) they aren't. 

 

Am I correct in thinking it's because sales tax is dependant upon the state?

[porina]

6 minutes ago, Roswell said:

National chains would need to keep thousands of databases for store pricing instead of just one and internet based retail would need to spam you with town/city selection on every visit before showing you pricing. It would be a nightmare.

Pick a national chain, with stores in many different states. Someone going into any store will still have to pay the correct amount. They are already doing the calculation needed. It is not difficult. On the system they'll have base price from which each local store price can be calculated off. 

 

For US internet sales, I'm not up to speed on the regulations. I know there was the question on where do you pay tax: the place selling, the place buying, or the place shipping? The three can be different. I get the impression each state is trying to get their cut, but don't know how it went.

[WkdPaul]

3 minutes ago, porina said:

Pick a national chain, with stores in many different states. Someone going into any store will still have to pay the correct amount. They are already doing the calculation needed. It is not difficult. On the system they'll have base price from which each local store price can be calculated off. 

 

For US internet sales, I'm not up to speed on the regulations. I know there was the question on where do you pay tax: the place selling, the place buying, or the place shipping? The three can be different. I get the impression each state is trying to get their cut, but don't know how it went.

Online sales are calculated with your home address and taxes are added accordingly. Years ago, they would only apply federal taxes for some stuff if you're not in the province the product ships from, but this rarely happens anymore (only saw that with a few sellers on Amazon).

[Roswell]

28 minutes ago, porina said:

Pick a national chain, with stores in many different states. Someone going into any store will still have to pay the correct amount. They are already doing the calculation needed. It is not difficult. On the system they'll have base price from which each local store price can be calculated off.

So… add thousands of separate databases of tax regions and continually push updates to all of them when they print off their tags? That’s the same amount of complexity, just shifted elsewhere.

 

This is all ignoring advertisement and the implications there. How do they accurately advertise in-store pricing? The newspapers, TV commercials and so on have no idea where they’re being read and seen.

[Jeppes]

1 minute ago, Roswell said:

So… add thousands of separate databases of tax regions and continually push updates to all of them when they print off their tags? That’s the same amount of complexity, just shifted elsewhere.

Thats how they would do it 1890:s. Now you have this thing called computer that makes handling databases really easy.

[tikker]

39 minutes ago, Roswell said:

National chains would need to keep thousands of databases for store pricing instead of just one and internet based retail would need to spam you with town/city selection on every visit before showing you pricing. It would be a nightmare.

Why does the US even have so many different tax rates? If they were to have a single tax rate per state they wouldn't be different from Europe, where countries also have varying VAT yet I can see tax-included prices on the websites. Unless I'm missing something, I don't see the nightmare.

[TetraSky]

17 minutes ago, Roswell said:

 

This is all ignoring advertisement and the implications there. How do they accurately advertise in-store pricing? The newspapers, TV commercials and so on have no idea where they’re being read and seen.

Hadn't thought of that one. If a company advertise a certain product nationwide... They would need to make a different ad for each states/cities because the price wouldn't be the same. That's going to take more time for the editor, meaning more wasted money. Not to mention more chances for someone to mess up and for the wrong price to be displayed...

 

7 minutes ago, tikker said:

Why does the US even have so many different tax rates? If they were to have a single tax rate per state they wouldn't be different from Europe, where countries also have varying VAT yet I can see tax-included prices on the websites. Unless I'm missing something, I don't see the nightmare.

Over 11000 different sales tax jurisdiction in the US.

This explains a bit about it

https://taxfoundation.org/sales-tax-rates-major-cities-2019

But basically if cities want a greater piece of that sale tax pie than the state does, so they increase taxes within the border of the city.

[Mark Kaine]

They also use "fantasy units" …

 

Just sayin'

 

PS: this always feels like a scam to me: so you have 1$ (yay) , buy bread for 99cent, they'll be like "That's 1.15$ then, please."  "What?!"  

[airborne spoon]

VAT is never included in a price for anything in the USA. even at the dollar store its $1+tax. I miss England, where the 99p store everything was 99 fucking p

[IkeaGnome]

4 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

They also use "fantasy units" …

 

Just sayin'

 

PS: this always feels like a scam to me: so you have 1$ (yay) , buy bread for 99cent, they'll be like "That's 1.15$ then, please."  "What?!"  

Or live in a place with no state or sales tax(a big portion of Alaska). That 99 cent bread is 99 cent bread. The rest of the states get scammed with $1.15 bread 

[Jeppes]

1 minute ago, IkeaGnome said:

Or live in a place with no state or sales tax(a big portion of Alaska). That 99 cent bread is 99 cent bread. The rest of the states get scammed with $1.15 bread 

Do they really sell groceries like that in USA? I would imagine food was more expensive in NYC even before taxes than in Alabama.

[IkeaGnome]

Just now, Jeppes said:

Do they really sell groceries like that in USA? I would imagine food was more expensive in NYC even before taxes than in Alabama.

Like how? Without taxes shown on the sticker? As far as I know, yeah. I do know when I go to states that have sales tax, I can show my Alaska ID and not have to pay sales tax. It's a pain with a form to fill out usually though.

[Roswell]

4 minutes ago, Jeppes said:

Do they really sell groceries like that in USA? I would imagine food was more expensive in NYC even before taxes than in Alabama.

 

2 minutes ago, IkeaGnome said:

Like how? Without taxes shown on the sticker? As far as I know, yeah. I do know when I go to states that have sales tax, I can show my Alaska ID and not have to pay sales tax. It's a pain with a form to fill out usually though.

Almost all states don’t tax groceries or other necessities.