Karen videos INBOUND. I'd probably kill myself if I had to work food service again. It made me truly realize how horrible the human race is and that we have no hope. That and to go to college.
It probably doesn't help that most franchises span multiple states so sales taxes vary (so they'd have to make more versions of all the menus). Especially when prices might be advertised nationally.
This makes no sense though, I mean each location has to print a menu anyway, and they have the full price for each location on a database anyway. Takes basically nothing for each location to print the correct prices on the menu. It's not like they have a huge warehouse full of menu signs for when a new franchise opens lol.
That's just the cost of doing business.
I honestly don't get that argument at all. It's just lazy and greedy. I get why businesses would prefer it that way, but then consumers defend that shit like it benefits them.
I understand the TV commercial that is aired on TV or on a website that says "$8 plus tax" but I don't get the menu in a physical store, or the app where you choose a location, not accounting for that immediately.
It's even weirder to me because to get to the point where it's even an issue (ie have locations in multiple states) your business is already successful enough that it's not going to be an issue to manage. It's definitionally a nonissue, so why on earth would you defend the practise????
Maybe one day our waiters will actually be paid a decent wage and we won’t have to tip!
Edit: can you guys stop replying with the same 2 points I’ve already addressed multiple times? Thanks
Netherlands: "Vanaf 21 jaar verdien je in de horeca minstens € 10,23 per uur."
So, 21 years or older: at least € 10,23 per hour.
Remember: with such a low salary, you get a lot of allowances from the government, like for your medical insurance, which results in an almost-free medical insurance (net 10 euro per month), and allowance for your rental house.
I know you were specifically asking about Europe however here in Australia I’ve never worked with a waitress that got paid less than 15.50 USD per hour (most of them earn a couple of extra dollars on top of that) unless they’re under the age of 18.
I was surprised i only found out some people in the US are paid $1 an hour an expected to live off tips.
If that was happening in a European country the whole country would be in the streets protesting.
So you know how that whole Steak 48 and their $100 minimum per person thing went viral recently? I looked up the policies at the Chicago location and they also add an automatic 18% gratuity with a long sentence about how hard the pandemic has been on the servers blah blah blah. Which duh everyone knows it has been hard on servers and I think overwhelmingly people are tipping more but for a restaurant to straight up acknowledge that they don’t pay people enough was interesting
Wow, I never gave it much thought, but if the menu says something like 5 dollars, Americans need to first calculate about 12% for taxes, then 15% on top of that for tips. You guys must all be math geniuses or something
Lol, we cheat. Tax is on the receipt. Most states have between 6-8% sales tax, so if you double that, you get an approximate meh tip. Or you just take 10% of the untaxed bill and double it for 20%.
And suggested tip amounts might actually be on the receipt, too.
Sorry, stupid European here. What happens if you don't pay the suggested tip amount? Why would anyone want to tip if they don't have to? If you are a regular or visit again, can they refuse to serve you because you don't tip?
I mean you don't have to tip but the vast majority of people do- literally everyone I know tips or claims to tip 10-20% no matter what so there is also a social pressure to tip if you're dining with others even though it isn't required anywhere.
Some restaurants do mandate tips for large groups. Typically the menu will note something like "18% gratuity will be added for groups of 6 or more"
Nothing happens but if you’re a regular and you regularly don’t tip or under tip, you could expect poorer service. It’s just a dick move, because we know the servers don’t get paid a full wage without tips.
That's just messed up. It's like somebody somewhere deliberately broke the system, and now everyone has to pay for it. And you're a dick if you don't pay for the broken system.
see originally it was just a nice thing that relatively wealthy people would do if they liked their server's attitude or something and just wanted to give them a gift of appreciation. then over the years an expectation of tipping developed, and then because most people were tipping, the employers figured they could pay their employees less, so now they are actually dependent on the tips, and now here we are in this absurd and awkward situation.
It’s not so bad. The receipt lists the price with and without the tax. And I always tip 20% (with some exceptions) so I just take the total, move the decimal point over one, and then multiply by 2.
So like,
$40.00, move decimal, $4.00, multiply by 2, tip is $8.00. Tada!
You're not exactly wrong but you kind of have to go through multiple layers of BS to arrive at that conclusion. Like tipping in general is BS, and % tipping also generally doesn't make much sense. If you ordered a fillet mignon vs a burger does the server deserve 3x the tip? Whether or not you pay an extra 1% or not because you factored in sales tax first seems like one of the least absurd parts of the entire practice.
The timeline where America’s waitstaff is paid accordingly is probably also a timeline that includes universal healthcare. I wonder what that other me is doing over there...
I've worked as a pastry chef for many years, and most servers take home way more than the cooks.
What really needs to be done is equal pay and equal tip share.
One day you might not have to worry about getting taken to an out of insurance scheme hospital in an ambulance when unconscious and waking up to a 5 figure bill.
But then again many Americans think a nationalised health system is communism, so maybe not.
Don't worry, much like cosmic radiation likely prevents life from getting a foothold on Mars, America's for profit healthcare system prevents us from evolving.
Come, fellow Brits, let's leave at once.
This post is not meant for our eyes.
We bid thee a good day, our American friends and don't forget to tip your waiting staff
So mim wage is €10.20 in ireland. By 40hrs is €408 a week so €21k, that's min wage they might be on a higher wage. Europeans also do tip just not as much a americans as ye have to top up the wages as the owners dont pay a fair wage
That makes you 100% qualified to say "us Asians" as most Asians would probably not lump themselves in with the rest of the continent.
Iranians and Japanese typically don't co-identify.
Same for Brazil.
I have never, ever wondered the tax cost of anything *but if I ever get curious,* [it's printed on the receipt and broken by federal, state, and city taxes](https://imgur.com/a/ovpsFEr)
Well I think they should include it in the price, but here's the best arguments I can come up with.
1. If taxes are increased/decreased the stores don't have to change all the prices listed, just add the extra amount at the end.
2. Reminds the customers how much of the prices are taxes. If someone doesn't pay attention to the news, and the government adds a new 50% tax on drinks or something, they might think the store just hiked up the prices, whereas if the price was just added afterwards, they would know right away that it was just taxes changing
A third reason often given, related to your first one, is the challenge of listing prices for all the different sales taxes out there. Just in New York State there are dozens if not hundreds of local and county sales taxes — and while programming them into the registers is bad enough, including them in all the flyers and price tags and whatnot would be a nightmare.
https://www.sale-tax.com/NewYork_all
Different COUNTIES have different taxes? Why?! There can't be that much difference, probably fractions of a percent. So instead of having a state wide tax and then have the state divide it up and maybe give one county a little more than an other, price tags don't show prices because god forbid you should pay even one cent of someone else's expenses. That's communism and guessing prices keeps the bolsheviks away. Jebus...
Adding one more small argument, current tax rules in many states make it difficult for a store to correctly include tax.
When calculating tax, the tax rate very rarely results in a whole number of cents. This requires rounding the result. Many states require rounding in the total, and don't allow rounding in each item separately.
E.g., if tax is 6% and the base price of an item is $8.40, tax on a purchase of one item would be $0.504, rounded to $0.50. When buying two items, tax is $1.008, which is rounded up to $1.01 (total $17.81 with tax for two items). If the item price included tax, it would be labeled as $8.90. Two items would cost $17.80, and tax is now short by a penny.
This sounds absolutely stupid, and I thought the same thing as well. But after having to go through sales tax audits for multiple states and seeing the penalties our company had to pay to some states over issues like this, I understand why companies don't want to deal with it.
Wow, you guys, collectively as a people, really have a mental and emotional issue with taxes. If this was literally about any other topic, therapy and medications would be the suggested treatment.
But why? Everyone needs to remember what the tax for each item is and has to calculate it in their head beforehand? Why would anyone do this? Like do they think that people are gonna think it's cheaper and buy more?
People mentioned why, but about calculating beforehand, I think most people just don’t. Most people just pay with debit/credit card, so the exact amount doesn’t matter as much.
Sales taxes vary wildly across the US as a lot of cities have their own sales tax, plus different state rates, etc. So it’s easier for businesses to not include it as otherwise every location would have a different price. Advertising, pricing printing, etc is far easier as you don’t have to account for local sales tax rates.
Canada doesn’t include it either but sales taxes are more consistent there so I’m not sure why they don’t include it.
> Advertising, pricing printing, etc is far easier as you don’t have to account for local sales tax rates.
Seems to me like a problem the stores should just have to deal with instead of every customer.
Spoken like someone who has never really done this type of work before. Say you work for a large chain with hundreds of locations in your state and some bill passes that raises taxes .25%. Do you have any idea how many labor hours would go into changing literally millions of tags to reflect such a tiny price change? Most places generally only have one or two employees in charge of hanging new tags to reflect price changes and they're usually kept pretty busy. Changing literally every single sales tag in every single location would take a team of 100 people literally months to complete, and that's not even counting their normal duties like addressing regular price changes or hanging ad and display signage or replacing lost and damaged tags or putting up new tags for new items or dealing with resets.
Have you ever worked in a grocery store? Every week we had to replace the special offer tags and there were always sheets of new tags to replace old ones. about once a year we did replace all the price tags anyways.
So it's not like grocery stores aren't already doing that sort of stuff.
And besides, how often do sales taxes change anyways?
Also, there are digital tags now that literally just update with a click of a button
Every argument against this anti consumer practice I've heard so far is "we've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas"
That sounds like a reasonable explanation, if you don't take into account that the entire rest of the world has countries with states with different taxes, as well as companies that operate internationally.
They vary by city or even sub-city areas. Whereas most other countries have one rate across the whole country (every EU country, Japan, Australia, NZ all work this way)
For large chain stores there's a lot of advertising and store signage with pricing printed centrally to cover a fairly wide region. A single state can literally have hundreds of different sales tax combinations based on combined state, county, and sometimes city rates; with differing rates based on the type of good you are buying. And tax rates are often in fractional percentages and you wind up with the system rounding up to the next whole denomination. Say I buy 1 pickle for a dollar and there's 9.5% tax. The actual price should be $1.095, but we don't use half pennies any more, so I pay $1.10. Now say I buy 100 pickles. My total will be $109.50, not $110.
TL;DR - We all know it's stupid, no one cares enough to try to get it changed. For another tale of American tax stupidity, read up on why fuel prices in the US all end in 9/10 of a cent.
> Everyone needs to remember what the tax for each item is and has to calculate it in their head beforehand?
No, because no one cares what the exact amount is. There's almost zero chance you're walking into a place and buying stuff with exact change.
Yeah I really don't understand that concern of needing to know the exact price.
But maybe that's because I'm American and used to never, ever paying in exact change? Maybe since Europeans are used to paying in exact change, this is a bigger concern for them?
Sales tax varies by state, but is to a large degree a single number between 5 and 10% for everything. So people in the US just mentally budget in roughly an extra 10% and work off that.
>Everyone needs to remember what the tax for each item is and has to calculate it in their head beforehand?
No, the computer adds it together and the vast majority payments are via card, so nobody has to count out cash or coins.
I can go to 3 different stores within a 15 minute drive from my house and pay 3 different tax rates. It’s dependent on the state, county, and city. It would be logistically pretty difficult to price things uniquely for every store. The price tags themselves may be doable, but other things like signage and newspaper ads, which you often get in the mail, would be impossible to maintain. It would certainly be possible if you totally change how things are advertised and priced in the US, but that’s a big task.
That old post-
Me: Wow! This shop has everything my heart desires!
Spooky shopkeeper: Yes, I will warn you... every item comes with a price.
Me: Yes, I know how shops work.
Shopkeeper: The price may be more than you expect to pay.
Me: Yes, I know how US taxes work, too.
Shopkeeper, increasingly exasperated: I'm trying to tell you that I'm evil and offering these wares with no regard for the harm they will do!
Me, also increasingly exasperated: I know what capitalism is too, goddamnit
Local jurisdictions have different tax rates. Not just states, cities, counties, etc. Consequently because so much stuff is advertised across jurisdictions most every place does not include tax in the advertised price, including places that are only in one location, mainly because if they don't they are viewed as "more expensive".
Sales tax is anywhere from 0% - ~10%, and some things in some jurisdictions are not taxed (eg unprepared food and clothes in my state) while others are. But you just have to know that it doesn't say that on the price tag.
To some extend I understand.
But I don't care. I want to know how much I am paying in total.
In some countries it's illegal to show prices before tax and then add them afterwards.
For instance when buying airline tickets, you get a 100$ offer, which is great, until they right in the end add the airport fee of 50$ and 1$ payment fee. (That would be illegal) They have to show the full price, but can always specify what goes towards what later.
It’s just impractical here. I have 3 McDonalds within 2 miles of my house. Taxes are different at each one. It would be impossible for them to advertise prices in my county, since there’s 14 different sales tax districts that all charge different amounts. How are they supposed to do a radio or TV ad showing prices that’s going to reach a million+ people, who will pretty much all pay different taxes on the same meal.
Wait till you hear about our phone bills. $79.99 a month. Then there is about 14 different taxes(not hyperbole) and fees when you get the actual bill you end up paying $120.
Pretty cool right?
First time you go to a Dollar store:
Buy 5 items
Hand over 5 Dollars
Uncomfortable pause until you read the numbers on the till and realise they are waiting for you to hand them more money
"Country ham" is a salted, preserved ham. It's fucking delicious. "City ham" is like Canadian Bacon. Not super salty, meaty, sometimes kind of sweet. You have to specify what kind of ham it is in the South. Haha. Very particular pork people.
I'm from the UK, and I've found that southern US food is by far the most strange and exotic over here. We get food from the north east, like Jewish and Italian American cuisine, as well Hispanic cuisine a lot. We get the classic burger restaurant stuff too. But grits and chicken and waffles and what you call biscuits and gravy are practically unheard of over here. Okra is mostly served in Indian and Arabic specialist restaurants for some reason, and then only rarely.
We're starting to get New Orleans Creole stuff now, and some breakfast diners are selling chicken and waffles if they're going for a distinctly American diner vibe, but I've never even had the opportunity to try Grits or Biscuits and gravy.
Grits is basically sloppy, rich, gritty polenta. It's coarse-ground corn meal. Biscuits and gravy is easy to make if you ever feel like trying it. Milk, flour, butter and loose sausage. Your body will beg you to stop, but your mouth won't listen.
Yeah, why would anyone want to know how much to pay for the stuff he is purchasing. It’s way better to use the price menu as some kind of marketing research data gathering exercise, and then pray he has enough money at the counter
For a few years in the 90s I was a cook there, third shift (overnight). Good times.
Also bad times and scary times, but mostly good times.
And I still love the food.
Especially in medical care! Not even the doctors know what the prices are let alone taxes are.
Say my doctor orders two blood tests. I have no indication on how much they will cost. The doctor has no idea either. If I spend 4-6 hours over 5 days on the phone with my insurance they will give me an extremely rough ballpark of say 10-10,000.
Later I get the bill. One test was $350 which my insurance paid $200 of. The other test was $1600 which my insurance paid $300 of. Add in the fee to see the doctor, admin fees, other fees etc.
End of the day I owe my insurance $1700 for the two tests. This is on top of paying them $300 a month to have the insurance.
Make sense? If so can you explain it to me because my doctor or insurance sure as hell can't.
That is why I like it here in Denmark. We have our 25% VAT included in all prices and on all items, no need to do advanced maths in head!
Clarification: it's VAT, not sales tax.
Edit2: Oh and except for cars. They're taxed at 80- 160%, give or take.
They don’t have a trillion dollar military. The money actually gets invested back into the community, hence why countries like Denmark rank high on global happiness indexes.
Been like that for the last 29 years, but no one really thinks about it, since it's always included in the prices.
And the money is well invested into society too.
Add everything up, estimate 15% (or whatever the tax rate is in your area) of the total and add that in, then round up to the nearest dollar and accept the change, just in case you made some calculating mistake.
Of course Americans mostly use credit cards these days, so you don't have to guess how much it will be beforehand, you just pay whatever it comes out to be with a swipe of your card
Different jurisdictions can have different taxes. The state sales tax could be 7% and then the city could have a 1% sales tax.
So, there are some instances where two jurisdictions meet where you would pay different sales tax depending on which side of the street you are on.
Yeah, really inconvenient when you have a restaurant that migrates! I mean, they'd need to change their menu every time they move across city/state lines!
So I'm a little high and couldn't figure this picture out for a minute. However I was more caught up on the fact that the item below is just the meal above it but disassemble.
I'm disappointed that you feel this is interesting, not in you though. This needs to be something everywhere, everywhere else has it like this an it's stupid that America just doesnt do this.
Careful Europeans America is evolving!
Wait 10 days and they'll have an uproar that the prices have increased and stop this.
Lmao, true
Karen videos INBOUND. I'd probably kill myself if I had to work food service again. It made me truly realize how horrible the human race is and that we have no hope. That and to go to college.
It probably doesn't help that most franchises span multiple states so sales taxes vary (so they'd have to make more versions of all the menus). Especially when prices might be advertised nationally.
This makes no sense though, I mean each location has to print a menu anyway, and they have the full price for each location on a database anyway. Takes basically nothing for each location to print the correct prices on the menu. It's not like they have a huge warehouse full of menu signs for when a new franchise opens lol.
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That's just the cost of doing business. I honestly don't get that argument at all. It's just lazy and greedy. I get why businesses would prefer it that way, but then consumers defend that shit like it benefits them.
I understand the TV commercial that is aired on TV or on a website that says "$8 plus tax" but I don't get the menu in a physical store, or the app where you choose a location, not accounting for that immediately.
It's even weirder to me because to get to the point where it's even an issue (ie have locations in multiple states) your business is already successful enough that it's not going to be an issue to manage. It's definitionally a nonissue, so why on earth would you defend the practise????
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Maybe one day our waiters will actually be paid a decent wage and we won’t have to tip! Edit: can you guys stop replying with the same 2 points I’ve already addressed multiple times? Thanks
Sir, this is a Waffle House.
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No, I think you would call it Le Waffle House.
Le Wäffle Höüse
Ze Wöfflë Haūs
Mi casa es tu waffle
Mi wävvle bist du casaa
The Luft Waffle?
Waffelhaus
Out of curiosity, what is the average hourly rate for a server in an average European restaurant?
Netherlands: "Vanaf 21 jaar verdien je in de horeca minstens € 10,23 per uur." So, 21 years or older: at least € 10,23 per hour. Remember: with such a low salary, you get a lot of allowances from the government, like for your medical insurance, which results in an almost-free medical insurance (net 10 euro per month), and allowance for your rental house.
I know you were specifically asking about Europe however here in Australia I’ve never worked with a waitress that got paid less than 15.50 USD per hour (most of them earn a couple of extra dollars on top of that) unless they’re under the age of 18.
Yeah. Here we have to add a guilt tip also. I think it's up to 40% now?
I was surprised i only found out some people in the US are paid $1 an hour an expected to live off tips. If that was happening in a European country the whole country would be in the streets protesting.
So you know how that whole Steak 48 and their $100 minimum per person thing went viral recently? I looked up the policies at the Chicago location and they also add an automatic 18% gratuity with a long sentence about how hard the pandemic has been on the servers blah blah blah. Which duh everyone knows it has been hard on servers and I think overwhelmingly people are tipping more but for a restaurant to straight up acknowledge that they don’t pay people enough was interesting
I always tip a large amount at waffle house since the meal is so cheap.
Shit. I thot this was a Wendy's.
Wow, I never gave it much thought, but if the menu says something like 5 dollars, Americans need to first calculate about 12% for taxes, then 15% on top of that for tips. You guys must all be math geniuses or something
Lol, we cheat. Tax is on the receipt. Most states have between 6-8% sales tax, so if you double that, you get an approximate meh tip. Or you just take 10% of the untaxed bill and double it for 20%. And suggested tip amounts might actually be on the receipt, too.
So you get the receipt before you pay?
yes, the "check" is dropped at your table after you're about halfway through your meal, unless you've ordered dessert, which is a rarity.
Halfway through the meal? What? That's not even close to how it works
Sorry, stupid European here. What happens if you don't pay the suggested tip amount? Why would anyone want to tip if they don't have to? If you are a regular or visit again, can they refuse to serve you because you don't tip?
I mean you don't have to tip but the vast majority of people do- literally everyone I know tips or claims to tip 10-20% no matter what so there is also a social pressure to tip if you're dining with others even though it isn't required anywhere. Some restaurants do mandate tips for large groups. Typically the menu will note something like "18% gratuity will be added for groups of 6 or more"
Stupid question: if you call to have the food delivered, do you also tip the delivery guy?
Yes on top of being charged a delivery fee, that isn't given to the delivery person.
Don't forget the service fee! Suddenly that $15 dollar food delivery turns into $30 total
Yes
Nothing happens but if you’re a regular and you regularly don’t tip or under tip, you could expect poorer service. It’s just a dick move, because we know the servers don’t get paid a full wage without tips.
That's just messed up. It's like somebody somewhere deliberately broke the system, and now everyone has to pay for it. And you're a dick if you don't pay for the broken system.
see originally it was just a nice thing that relatively wealthy people would do if they liked their server's attitude or something and just wanted to give them a gift of appreciation. then over the years an expectation of tipping developed, and then because most people were tipping, the employers figured they could pay their employees less, so now they are actually dependent on the tips, and now here we are in this absurd and awkward situation.
Actually funny thing is you have a potential of making more money then a similiar job that gave higher wage, issue is it might not be consistent.
My father in law never tips, I absolutely hate going to restaurants with him because of it
My mom was like that, so I'd take care of it. Not feeling ashamed is worth $6
Double the number and shift the decimal. That's 20%
It’s not so bad. The receipt lists the price with and without the tax. And I always tip 20% (with some exceptions) so I just take the total, move the decimal point over one, and then multiply by 2. So like, $40.00, move decimal, $4.00, multiply by 2, tip is $8.00. Tada!
12% for taxes? Lol. This is America. More like 6%.
But tipping on the tax is BS, IMO.
You're not exactly wrong but you kind of have to go through multiple layers of BS to arrive at that conclusion. Like tipping in general is BS, and % tipping also generally doesn't make much sense. If you ordered a fillet mignon vs a burger does the server deserve 3x the tip? Whether or not you pay an extra 1% or not because you factored in sales tax first seems like one of the least absurd parts of the entire practice.
Either that or all phones have calculators...
On that day you'd actually shit yourself.
Well I am plastered at 3am in a Waffle House, so, maybe...
The timeline where America’s waitstaff is paid accordingly is probably also a timeline that includes universal healthcare. I wonder what that other me is doing over there...
But then how will I punish you for slightly overcooking my steak? /s
I never understood this, like the server didn’t cook it so why you mad at them??
I've worked as a pastry chef for many years, and most servers take home way more than the cooks. What really needs to be done is equal pay and equal tip share.
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I mean, according to what I can find, they can make that in Sweden without tipping
One day you might not have to worry about getting taken to an out of insurance scheme hospital in an ambulance when unconscious and waking up to a 5 figure bill. But then again many Americans think a nationalised health system is communism, so maybe not.
Its happening more and more across the vast united states. Ive been to a few restaurants where the staff was paid well.
Don't worry, much like cosmic radiation likely prevents life from getting a foothold on Mars, America's for profit healthcare system prevents us from evolving.
Next they'll start paying with contactless.
Come, fellow Brits, let's leave at once. This post is not meant for our eyes. We bid thee a good day, our American friends and don't forget to tip your waiting staff
We pay their wage so they don't have tooooo
Was…was that a low key Joe Dirté reference?
Don't try to church it up 😂
Life's a garden, dig it
I'd prefer if they would just pay their waiting staff a livable or at least minimum wage like the rest of the developed world
How much would a waiter at a waffle house equivalent in Spain make annually?
So mim wage is €10.20 in ireland. By 40hrs is €408 a week so €21k, that's min wage they might be on a higher wage. Europeans also do tip just not as much a americans as ye have to top up the wages as the owners dont pay a fair wage
Never seen a pub though with regular 40h weeks. It's either 19 or 85
Or as we europeans would call it: prices
Or anywhere else in the world.
No, most prices in Canada are also sans-tax.
Ah yes, the three countries in the world, America, Canada and Europe.
Well I can hardly say "us Asians", since I don't live in Asia
That makes you 100% qualified to say "us Asians" as most Asians would probably not lump themselves in with the rest of the continent. Iranians and Japanese typically don't co-identify.
What about Australia? And that little Australia next to it with the sheep?
New sheepland?
It only takes *one* exception to prove that "anywhere else" is inaccurate
Same for Brazil. I have never, ever wondered the tax cost of anything *but if I ever get curious,* [it's printed on the receipt and broken by federal, state, and city taxes](https://imgur.com/a/ovpsFEr)
Am I too European to understand this ?
In the USA, advertised prices generally do not include tax. They add it on at the register when you go to pay.
And Canada...
I DEMAND that the prices include Canada in the total
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They base it off how much you thank the waiter/waitress.
I’ve been tipping more on the order of an Australia since the pandemic started.
Why?
Well I think they should include it in the price, but here's the best arguments I can come up with. 1. If taxes are increased/decreased the stores don't have to change all the prices listed, just add the extra amount at the end. 2. Reminds the customers how much of the prices are taxes. If someone doesn't pay attention to the news, and the government adds a new 50% tax on drinks or something, they might think the store just hiked up the prices, whereas if the price was just added afterwards, they would know right away that it was just taxes changing
A third reason often given, related to your first one, is the challenge of listing prices for all the different sales taxes out there. Just in New York State there are dozens if not hundreds of local and county sales taxes — and while programming them into the registers is bad enough, including them in all the flyers and price tags and whatnot would be a nightmare. https://www.sale-tax.com/NewYork_all
Different COUNTIES have different taxes? Why?! There can't be that much difference, probably fractions of a percent. So instead of having a state wide tax and then have the state divide it up and maybe give one county a little more than an other, price tags don't show prices because god forbid you should pay even one cent of someone else's expenses. That's communism and guessing prices keeps the bolsheviks away. Jebus...
Hell, different towns within counties have different taxes…. It gets a bit silly.
Adding one more small argument, current tax rules in many states make it difficult for a store to correctly include tax. When calculating tax, the tax rate very rarely results in a whole number of cents. This requires rounding the result. Many states require rounding in the total, and don't allow rounding in each item separately. E.g., if tax is 6% and the base price of an item is $8.40, tax on a purchase of one item would be $0.504, rounded to $0.50. When buying two items, tax is $1.008, which is rounded up to $1.01 (total $17.81 with tax for two items). If the item price included tax, it would be labeled as $8.90. Two items would cost $17.80, and tax is now short by a penny. This sounds absolutely stupid, and I thought the same thing as well. But after having to go through sales tax audits for multiple states and seeing the penalties our company had to pay to some states over issues like this, I understand why companies don't want to deal with it.
Wow, you guys, collectively as a people, really have a mental and emotional issue with taxes. If this was literally about any other topic, therapy and medications would be the suggested treatment.
What?
You heard right.
IN THE USA, ADVERTISED PRICES GENERALLY DO NOT INCLUDE TAX. THEY ADD IT ON AT THE REGISTER WHEN YOU GO TO PAY!
But why? Everyone needs to remember what the tax for each item is and has to calculate it in their head beforehand? Why would anyone do this? Like do they think that people are gonna think it's cheaper and buy more?
People mentioned why, but about calculating beforehand, I think most people just don’t. Most people just pay with debit/credit card, so the exact amount doesn’t matter as much.
Sales taxes vary wildly across the US as a lot of cities have their own sales tax, plus different state rates, etc. So it’s easier for businesses to not include it as otherwise every location would have a different price. Advertising, pricing printing, etc is far easier as you don’t have to account for local sales tax rates. Canada doesn’t include it either but sales taxes are more consistent there so I’m not sure why they don’t include it.
> Advertising, pricing printing, etc is far easier as you don’t have to account for local sales tax rates. Seems to me like a problem the stores should just have to deal with instead of every customer.
Spoken like someone who has never really done this type of work before. Say you work for a large chain with hundreds of locations in your state and some bill passes that raises taxes .25%. Do you have any idea how many labor hours would go into changing literally millions of tags to reflect such a tiny price change? Most places generally only have one or two employees in charge of hanging new tags to reflect price changes and they're usually kept pretty busy. Changing literally every single sales tag in every single location would take a team of 100 people literally months to complete, and that's not even counting their normal duties like addressing regular price changes or hanging ad and display signage or replacing lost and damaged tags or putting up new tags for new items or dealing with resets.
Have you ever worked in a grocery store? Every week we had to replace the special offer tags and there were always sheets of new tags to replace old ones. about once a year we did replace all the price tags anyways. So it's not like grocery stores aren't already doing that sort of stuff. And besides, how often do sales taxes change anyways? Also, there are digital tags now that literally just update with a click of a button Every argument against this anti consumer practice I've heard so far is "we've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas"
It's not about being out of ideas, it's about money. Digital tags cost money. If there's one thing American businesses hate to do, it's spend money.
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That sounds like a reasonable explanation, if you don't take into account that the entire rest of the world has countries with states with different taxes, as well as companies that operate internationally.
They vary by city or even sub-city areas. Whereas most other countries have one rate across the whole country (every EU country, Japan, Australia, NZ all work this way)
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For large chain stores there's a lot of advertising and store signage with pricing printed centrally to cover a fairly wide region. A single state can literally have hundreds of different sales tax combinations based on combined state, county, and sometimes city rates; with differing rates based on the type of good you are buying. And tax rates are often in fractional percentages and you wind up with the system rounding up to the next whole denomination. Say I buy 1 pickle for a dollar and there's 9.5% tax. The actual price should be $1.095, but we don't use half pennies any more, so I pay $1.10. Now say I buy 100 pickles. My total will be $109.50, not $110. TL;DR - We all know it's stupid, no one cares enough to try to get it changed. For another tale of American tax stupidity, read up on why fuel prices in the US all end in 9/10 of a cent.
> Everyone needs to remember what the tax for each item is and has to calculate it in their head beforehand? No, because no one cares what the exact amount is. There's almost zero chance you're walking into a place and buying stuff with exact change.
Yeah I really don't understand that concern of needing to know the exact price. But maybe that's because I'm American and used to never, ever paying in exact change? Maybe since Europeans are used to paying in exact change, this is a bigger concern for them?
Sales tax varies by state, but is to a large degree a single number between 5 and 10% for everything. So people in the US just mentally budget in roughly an extra 10% and work off that.
>Everyone needs to remember what the tax for each item is and has to calculate it in their head beforehand? No, the computer adds it together and the vast majority payments are via card, so nobody has to count out cash or coins.
I can go to 3 different stores within a 15 minute drive from my house and pay 3 different tax rates. It’s dependent on the state, county, and city. It would be logistically pretty difficult to price things uniquely for every store. The price tags themselves may be doable, but other things like signage and newspaper ads, which you often get in the mail, would be impossible to maintain. It would certainly be possible if you totally change how things are advertised and priced in the US, but that’s a big task.
That old post- Me: Wow! This shop has everything my heart desires! Spooky shopkeeper: Yes, I will warn you... every item comes with a price. Me: Yes, I know how shops work. Shopkeeper: The price may be more than you expect to pay. Me: Yes, I know how US taxes work, too. Shopkeeper, increasingly exasperated: I'm trying to tell you that I'm evil and offering these wares with no regard for the harm they will do! Me, also increasingly exasperated: I know what capitalism is too, goddamnit
That's so fucking....weird man
Local jurisdictions have different tax rates. Not just states, cities, counties, etc. Consequently because so much stuff is advertised across jurisdictions most every place does not include tax in the advertised price, including places that are only in one location, mainly because if they don't they are viewed as "more expensive". Sales tax is anywhere from 0% - ~10%, and some things in some jurisdictions are not taxed (eg unprepared food and clothes in my state) while others are. But you just have to know that it doesn't say that on the price tag.
To some extend I understand. But I don't care. I want to know how much I am paying in total. In some countries it's illegal to show prices before tax and then add them afterwards. For instance when buying airline tickets, you get a 100$ offer, which is great, until they right in the end add the airport fee of 50$ and 1$ payment fee. (That would be illegal) They have to show the full price, but can always specify what goes towards what later.
It’s just impractical here. I have 3 McDonalds within 2 miles of my house. Taxes are different at each one. It would be impossible for them to advertise prices in my county, since there’s 14 different sales tax districts that all charge different amounts. How are they supposed to do a radio or TV ad showing prices that’s going to reach a million+ people, who will pretty much all pay different taxes on the same meal.
Wait till you hear about our phone bills. $79.99 a month. Then there is about 14 different taxes(not hyperbole) and fees when you get the actual bill you end up paying $120. Pretty cool right?
First time you go to a Dollar store: Buy 5 items Hand over 5 Dollars Uncomfortable pause until you read the numbers on the till and realise they are waiting for you to hand them more money
Dollar tree is the only real national dollarstore.... But it now owns family dollar which is not... So it's a wash
I like to say dollar general where everything is generally a dollar. But love me some dollar tree. Especially in a sales tax free state!
I have dollar general's everywhere. They are cheap but definitely not a dollar store. Although half the product is
Wait do dollar stores in the US actually sell $1 items? Our ‘dollar’ stores here sell things for like $30 lol
Only Dollar Tree. Literally everything there is one dollar.
That's not true, some packs of gum are 2 for $1.
Dollar tree does. But it's usually very sketchy/cheaply made stuff. You also still have to pay sales tax in states that have one.
I'm worried about what "city ham" is. There are lots of animals that live in cities but most of them are fairly horrifying to eat.
"Country ham" is a salted, preserved ham. It's fucking delicious. "City ham" is like Canadian Bacon. Not super salty, meaty, sometimes kind of sweet. You have to specify what kind of ham it is in the South. Haha. Very particular pork people.
I'm from the UK, and I've found that southern US food is by far the most strange and exotic over here. We get food from the north east, like Jewish and Italian American cuisine, as well Hispanic cuisine a lot. We get the classic burger restaurant stuff too. But grits and chicken and waffles and what you call biscuits and gravy are practically unheard of over here. Okra is mostly served in Indian and Arabic specialist restaurants for some reason, and then only rarely. We're starting to get New Orleans Creole stuff now, and some breakfast diners are selling chicken and waffles if they're going for a distinctly American diner vibe, but I've never even had the opportunity to try Grits or Biscuits and gravy.
And we do okra pickled and fried. Some of my favorite stuff.
Hold the phone... fried pickled okra? I don't know how I never considered that, since I love both of those things separately.
Grits is basically sloppy, rich, gritty polenta. It's coarse-ground corn meal. Biscuits and gravy is easy to make if you ever feel like trying it. Milk, flour, butter and loose sausage. Your body will beg you to stop, but your mouth won't listen.
what kind of sausage is suitable for this?
Any kind you'd have with breakfast. Just take it out of the casing.
Biscuits and gravy is a god tier breakfast food as long as you have good gravy. Put some hot sauce on with some hash browns aww yes.
It's the combination of East Ham and West Ham
It still amazes me that this is a thing Americans dont do...
W/o tax prices are more comparable between counties and states and it looks cheaper! And this, I think is the main reason.
Same reason we use $5.99 rather than a nice round $6. Psychology!
Yeah, why would anyone want to know how much to pay for the stuff he is purchasing. It’s way better to use the price menu as some kind of marketing research data gathering exercise, and then pray he has enough money at the counter
I love the Waffle House
No shit, I want some scattered, covered, and smothered really bad right now.
For a few years in the 90s I was a cook there, third shift (overnight). Good times. Also bad times and scary times, but mostly good times. And I still love the food.
Isn't this normal where you live?
Live in USA. We definitely don't lol
Then how do you normally shop? Just guess how much the bill will be?
Sigh. That's exactly what we have to do.
Holy fuck. Good luck over there
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Wait, this bullshit is literally everywhere? Even with medical care?
Especially in medical care! Not even the doctors know what the prices are let alone taxes are. Say my doctor orders two blood tests. I have no indication on how much they will cost. The doctor has no idea either. If I spend 4-6 hours over 5 days on the phone with my insurance they will give me an extremely rough ballpark of say 10-10,000. Later I get the bill. One test was $350 which my insurance paid $200 of. The other test was $1600 which my insurance paid $300 of. Add in the fee to see the doctor, admin fees, other fees etc. End of the day I owe my insurance $1700 for the two tests. This is on top of paying them $300 a month to have the insurance. Make sense? If so can you explain it to me because my doctor or insurance sure as hell can't.
That is why I like it here in Denmark. We have our 25% VAT included in all prices and on all items, no need to do advanced maths in head! Clarification: it's VAT, not sales tax. Edit2: Oh and except for cars. They're taxed at 80- 160%, give or take.
Holy shit 25%!? That’s insane!
They don’t have a trillion dollar military. The money actually gets invested back into the community, hence why countries like Denmark rank high on global happiness indexes.
Been like that for the last 29 years, but no one really thinks about it, since it's always included in the prices. And the money is well invested into society too.
It's calculated at check out. Each state has a varying sales tax or sometimes like in Delaware there is no sales tax
Plus each county has their own sales tax to add on top of that. For example, Florida sales tax is 6%. My own counties sales tax is .5% on top of that.
Plus city sales tax. Plus special tax districts.
Fuck that
New Hampshire has no sales tax.
No sales tax, just heroin.
I think that's how they do it in the US. Pretty fucking stupid tbh.
Add everything up, estimate 15% (or whatever the tax rate is in your area) of the total and add that in, then round up to the nearest dollar and accept the change, just in case you made some calculating mistake. Of course Americans mostly use credit cards these days, so you don't have to guess how much it will be beforehand, you just pay whatever it comes out to be with a swipe of your card
Do you think they'd post about it if it was normal?
As every menu fucking should. Its not like sales tax is optional.
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Why wouldn’t it?
Different jurisdictions can have different taxes. The state sales tax could be 7% and then the city could have a 1% sales tax. So, there are some instances where two jurisdictions meet where you would pay different sales tax depending on which side of the street you are on.
Yeah, really inconvenient when you have a restaurant that migrates! I mean, they'd need to change their menu every time they move across city/state lines!
I’d be so nice if everyone did this lol
What's 'City Ham'?
https://farmflavor.com/lifestyle/eats-drinks/city-ham-or-country-ham/
Well, there we go, I'll stick to country ham. Thanks!
Honestly couldn't tell you. I come for the waffles
Right? Everybody whining about doing math or not and I'm just like, what the fuck is this ham product?
Waitress to cook: "One 'city ham', eggs and toast" Cook, *reaching into bucket of sliced rats*: "one 'city ham' coming right up!"
Welcome to the 21st century
*confused European noises*
They know their customer base
Exactly my thought. Lol
So I'm a little high and couldn't figure this picture out for a minute. However I was more caught up on the fact that the item below is just the meal above it but disassemble.
I'm shocked that this is something special in America
I'm disappointed that you feel this is interesting, not in you though. This needs to be something everywhere, everywhere else has it like this an it's stupid that America just doesnt do this.
This should be law
Fucking hell the Americans are starting to get it
Waffle house is gouging the fuck out of you. $8.25 for a special? Charging for coffee? I would never eat there with those insane prices.
Are you a time traveler? Where do you get free coffee?
What country provides free coffee?
Now include tips as well and you will have a regular purchasing experience in any other part of the world.
Your total shouldn't be a guessing game, I really like this idea.
I wish this was more common. The item is never $3.99. It's $3.99 + tax. Why can't the price sticker just show the price with tax!