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by FT_intern 3296 days ago
The sales tax in canada is brutal
2 comments
kogepathic 3296 days ago
Not really. The highest sales tax is 15% (NB, NL, NS, PEI).

I'll grant that's higher than in some US states, but come over to Europe where VAT is usually 19-25%. Although at least in Europe prices are advertised including VAT, so no mental math is required to calculate how much it will end up costing.

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Amezarak 3296 days ago
That's higher than in all US states. The highest US state sales tax is 7.25%. The highest municipal+state sales tax is 12.8%.

That's a huge outlier, though. The average is 5%, and many states exempt huge swaths of goods (such as groceries) and some have no sales tax at all.

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kogepathic 3295 days ago
> and many states exempt huge swaths of goods (such as groceries) and some have no sales tax at all.

Groceries are exempt from GST/PST or HST in Canada as well.

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gricardo99 3296 days ago
That certainly changes the cost-of-living, but it's not really relevant to the point about exchange rates and price differences, since most people compare prices pre-sales tax. Sticker prices, in the US and Canada (and Europe?), don't typically include sales tax.
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