4 ms·

The sales tax in canada is brutal

• kogepathic 9y 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.
  • Amezarak 9y 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.
    • kogepathic 9y 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.
• gricardo99 9y 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.