[JumpCrisscross]

> How do they know how much tax to charge you when you buy?

Did you miss the part about it being calculated in the cart? That’s after you’ve made the decision to purchase, a decision which presumably included the price. I would refuse to give every vendor my address just to see a price.

[pbhjpbhj]

>I would absolutely refuse to give every vendor my address just to see a price.

How does it work now? If you don't give your address, but the price depends on your address, how does the store know how much to charge you? If you don't have to give your ID then surely you just say you're from the lowest tax location?

[JumpCrisscross]

> If you don't give your address, but the price depends on your address, how does the store know how much to charge you?

I don’t want to give my address to see the price. After I’ve decided to buy the thing, I’m okay disclosing who I am. But simply to see the price?

Also, if I’m a retailer and people are giving me their address before I price them, on what planet am I not going to use that to help me price discriminate?

[guappa]

You don't need the address, you just need to know in which city they live, AT MOST.

Taxes don't change every street.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Taxes don't change every street

Ha. Oh boy. I remember when an engineer at a POS system start-up said something similar. It's like when someone decides they're going to roll their own time zone calculation.

In case you're curious, yes, two people in the same city can be in different counties, different school districts, different water boards, et cetera. Each of those typically has taxing authority. And this is before we get into crap like urban enterprise zones [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:New_Jersey_Urban_Ente...

[astrange]

Part of Valley Fair Mall in San Jose is actually in a different city (Santa Clara). Which I believe currently has a different minimum wage, and the stores in the rest of the mall don't price match it.

Also, Apple Park is in Cupertino the city but not the school district.

[devilbunny]

They might. Cities can, in most states, cross county borders. Both counties and cities can have their own taxes.

I've seen cases where a neighborhood was split. Two near-identical houses, but one had less than half the property tax of the one next to it.

[bcrosby95]

Believing mailing address cities actually corresponds to a unit of government is one thing I learned is incorrect when I moved to the LA area.

I live near a place called Westlake Village that straddles the LA County/Ventura County line. In LA County, Westlake Village is a city. In Ventura County, Westlake Village is a neighborhood within Thousand Oaks, and it has a different tax rate. But both mailing addresses use Westlake Village as the city.

Similarly, I have friends that live in Newbury Park, and that's what is on his mailing address. But Newbury Park is just a neighborhood within Thousand Oaks.

[devilbunny]

Mailing addresses often have little to do with local governance; they’re for the USPS. Just tells you where it will be processed.

[guappa]

In which case sharing the address is completely useless anyway, so the problem of having to share the address is automatically solved :)

[ffgjgf1]

What would the ID change?

It only really matters where the goods are delivered.

[heimidal]

Tax depends on the location the item is shipped to.

[guappa]

So if you buy groceries and then live in a different tax area, you have a customs office to pay the extra tax?

[heimidal]

No. Sales tax in the US is determined based on the location where the customer takes possession of the merchandise.