[callmeal]

>Are the prices not listed on the individual items?

This is not aimed at deanCommie, but I just want to comment on the massive cognitive dissonance in effect when the issue of listing tax-included prices on individual items in America is raised.

Do none of those arguments hold anymore? Why? Because it isn't European tourists asking the question?

[samatman]

European VATs are routinely much higher than any state sales tax in the US.

I can't prove it, but I suspect this is directly related to the fact that in the US system, we see the tax on every purchase.

I admit it's annoying to not have a single number to work with, having to juggle sticker price and real price sucks (the same argument applies to tipping).

But sales taxes are regressive and I don't want them to creep upwards indefinitely. A compromise would be to always display both prices, and make the price-at-register larger.

[Aeolun]

While I agree with listing tax inclusive prices. Is it really that much of a mental effort to add 7%?

[samatman]

Absolutely, large swaths of the population can't do simple mental arithmetic like this at all.

The US system discriminates against those people, no denying it. That said, I'm sure our European friends are absolutely drooling at the thought of a 7% VAT...

[disgruntledphd2]

It's just part of the price, you don't really notice.

Like I do sometimes, but then I consider VAT policy somewhat interesting, in that it specifies the "essentials" (VAT is not charged on these) of what a tax authority thinks one should have.

But most Europeans tend not to think about it on a daily basis, because it's baked into the price.

[tialaramex]

Legally VAT isn't about essentials, although luxury taxes which pre-dated VAT were often specified this way.

VAT is just a tax on Value Added like it says, and the exclusions targeting items you see as essential aren't focused on somebody's idea of what's essential but are the result of various lobbying. That is, it was not the goal of the tax system to encourage petite women to buy clothes intended for children nor to punish the largest children (or their parents) with more expensive clothes that's just the consequence of a lobbied-for exemption for kid sizes.

So "But it's an essential" is a useful emotional tactic but has no legal implications for VAT.

[Aeolun]

I’m not sure that’s unfair, because they ostensibly all learned it in elementary school.

If they willfully forget/ignore something as basic at that ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[samatman]

No, you misunderstand, they can't. It's not for lack of trying.

[callmeal]

If you live in the San Francisco Bay area, sales taxes in SF are 8.5% Tax rates in Oakland are 9.25%. South San Francisco: 9.75% Mountain View: 9% Humboldt County: 7.75% Sonoma: 8.75%

The mental effort is not in the calculation but in figuring out what the tax rate is where you are. There really is no excuse for retailers not listing "tax-included" prices.