Hypothetically, what do you think about requiring a big, up-front total and a high-level cost breakdown (section numbers for tax codes, overall material cost, amortized facilities cost)?
To some of your points:
1. Isn't super important because on the <<1% of sales that could happen that way they're required to inform you of your tax burden.
2. Break it out as a line item. Bold it. Maybe a bit more transparency would help with the pattern of stores raking in record profits when any upstream supplier has a minor price hiccup.
3. Having to memorize the tax rates in every city for every class of goods and apply those accurately on the fly doesn't benefit anyone unless it finally pisses off enough people to turn our mess of a system into something simpler. Displaying the actual tax rate on the receipt should more than suffice.
The thing that worries me about the pattern of tacking on crap after a total had already been agreed to is that it conditions is to accept that as just something that happens once in awhile. Like how SF restaurants started tacking on a fixed percentage to cover employee health benefits when that law passed. You'd sit down to a meal, choose what you're going to eat at least partially based on the price and expected tip, and find out after the meal that they expect you to pay some amount greater than what was listed and societally accepted at the time -- and critically, on average it's a much greater fee than is actually required to pay the offending tax. That particular instance has gotten a little better since at least they usually have small-print signs informing you of that fact now, but it repeats itself in car dealerships making up line items passing on ordinary costs of doing business to consumers as if they were collecting ordinary sales tax, in toll companies separating out an additional fee for the envelope they're using to send you your bill, ....
I dont think simply putting on the reciept is a solution to #3, because people internalize pricing and make the choice to buy before the transaction. it would only work if the before Tax and After Tax price was displayed before purchase.
Anything less is still hiding the taxation IMO
Also I am intrigued by the people that say they are "Having to memorize the tax rates in every city" and "apply those accurately on the fly" I am not sure I have ever in my life needed to that? Why would you need to calculate that on the fly? Unless you are buying a big ticket item costing thousands of dollars then the tax should not be a factor on if you are going to buy X or not so what purpose would it have to calculate it in your head like that?
> what purpose would it have to calculate it in your head like that?
Huge swathes of people in the US struggle to afford food, and an extra 10+% floating around makes a big difference. It's nice that you can afford to spend your time more productively, but that's a luxury a lot of people can't.
As something of a side note, it's a bit of an odd position to take that taxe hikes are important enough to make it illegal to even mildly obscure them but that they're minor enough they would never affect your purchasing decisions on all but the most major of items.
>US struggle to afford food, and an extra 10+% floating around makes a big
I am not aware of any us state that charges sales tax on staple food items. Also I feel sorry for anyone that lives in a place with 10% sales tax that is crazy high
>>a bit of an odd position
Not really one of the ways I believe we have to keep them low is by ensuring transparency. My state has less 7% sales tax less than 4% state income tax, less than 1% local income tax and a capped property tax of 1%
> I am not aware of any us state that charges sales tax on staple food items. Also I feel sorry for anyone that lives in a place with 10% sales tax that is crazy high
Most major US cities are at 8-9%. Many smaller cities (and St Louis) are more than 10. Cumulatively it's a lot of people afflicted.
Also, I'm with you on staples not being taxed, but that's part of the problem with the tax being added later instead of precomputed into the total; if you're shopping at a general purpose store (the Walmart in Mt View AR has been an offender for awhile, but I rarely find perfectly correct tax calculations on receipts for all but the simplest of purchases at any store) and buy a mix of staples and clothes and whatever, very frequently you'll find that staples were taxed, and if you weren't tracking things closely you'll have missed where the extra few dollars went. You don't know till the register what the price will be and can't easily plan ahead.
Another related problem, especially in the poorer parts of the country, the cheapest calories you can buy, especially if you're working too many jobs to have time to cook, are often excluded from such tax exclusions to discourage unhealthy eating habits (note also how obesity negatively correlates strongly with income). If you go into it with a vague notion of food not being taxed you can get surprised with 10% sales tax, a 5% junk food tax, and often a 10-50 cent (on cheap food a non-negligible percentage) plastic use tax or some other crap.
And so on. The problems stemming from not knowing what you'll pay are common and real, and they disproportionately hit people who can least afford it.
So the reasonable compromise here is to just have both prices on the labels. The pre-tax and post-tax price. I wouldn't be opposed to knowing how much taxes increase the individual price of the item, but I do want to know the final price before I put it in my cart.
To some of your points:
1. Isn't super important because on the <<1% of sales that could happen that way they're required to inform you of your tax burden.
2. Break it out as a line item. Bold it. Maybe a bit more transparency would help with the pattern of stores raking in record profits when any upstream supplier has a minor price hiccup.
3. Having to memorize the tax rates in every city for every class of goods and apply those accurately on the fly doesn't benefit anyone unless it finally pisses off enough people to turn our mess of a system into something simpler. Displaying the actual tax rate on the receipt should more than suffice.
The thing that worries me about the pattern of tacking on crap after a total had already been agreed to is that it conditions is to accept that as just something that happens once in awhile. Like how SF restaurants started tacking on a fixed percentage to cover employee health benefits when that law passed. You'd sit down to a meal, choose what you're going to eat at least partially based on the price and expected tip, and find out after the meal that they expect you to pay some amount greater than what was listed and societally accepted at the time -- and critically, on average it's a much greater fee than is actually required to pay the offending tax. That particular instance has gotten a little better since at least they usually have small-print signs informing you of that fact now, but it repeats itself in car dealerships making up line items passing on ordinary costs of doing business to consumers as if they were collecting ordinary sales tax, in toll companies separating out an additional fee for the envelope they're using to send you your bill, ....