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These fees seem to be particularly prevalent in the travel and entertainment industries. I stayed at a hotel in NYC relatively recently, and I booked and pre-pa

These fees seem to be particularly prevalent in the travel and entertainment industries. I stayed at a hotel in NYC relatively recently, and I booked and pre-paid through hotels.com. When I arrived, the hotel sprung me with a $50/night "resort fee", which was apparently required to stay at the hotel (though I am sure they would tell regulators that it's optional). I also don't understand the US practice of not including relevant sales tax charges in the cost of a good. I know that many US states operate a sales tax (which seems like a bad idea as opposed to a VAT or similar system). I don't mind having actually optional extras be charged separately, but if they aren't really optional (like a service fee), it should be part of the price. I'd be very interested if someone has a link to the text of what is actually being proposed.

Moto7451 3y ago
Regarding US Sales Tax v.s. VAT. Sales Tax is an indirect tax on consumption that is deferred until the end consumer makes a purchased, and taxed in the area they made the purchase (even online since 2018). Some end consumers are tax exempt and can avoid paying Sales Tax. Companies can write off taxes paid where appropriate. Everyone else in the value chain is tax exempt assuming they filed their paperwork correctly. Ultimately this means that there is no equivalent to a VAT recovery, reverse charing, etc, and the governments that collect sales tax don't see any money if something is never sold. Sales tax is not included in the price because it is based on the price. If a widget is sold for $10 today, there is less tax paid if you sell that widget for $1 tomorrow. It doesn't matter if $9 of additional value was created along the way. States, counties, and cities can have different sales tax rates for various reasons. For example, my city voted to add to the sales tax to pay for road improvements. There is a lot of travel into our area for consumption so it ends up that visitors pay for roads even if they don't refuel their cars in the city. Sales Tax and VAT are not bad ideas, they're just different ideas. At the end of the day if your government wants a Dollar, a Pound, or a Euro, they'll find a way to raise it.
- kibwen 3y ago
  Regardless of the distinction between sales tax and VAT, if any given US state wanted to have the state sales tax be included in the price that is shown to the end-user (at least in physical stores that exist in that state), I don't think there's any federal law preventing them from doing so. In other words, rather than having the store list a pack of gum for $1.00 and then charging me $1.06 at the register, the state could just require that the store list the pack of gum at $1.06. If that means the price of a can of Arizona Tea has to vary by, like, two cents when you cross state lines, that's a worthwhile tradeoff.
  - thephyber 3y ago
    Sales Tax rates vary by the address and don’t apply to some goods/services. Additionally, some states have holidays (like “back to school no sales tax days”). That is to say that the retailer needs the recipient’s address before shopping, rather than after. Also, if sales tax is handled by an external API call, those costs would increase drastically if the same call must be made for each product listing price, as opposed to just a few at the end of checkout flow.
    - hakfoo 3y ago
      The bajillion-jurisdictions problem can be solved on an aggregate basis. Charge everyone $100 inclusive-of-taxes. Keep $93.50 of that from a customer in Phoenix, $92.75 from a customer in Los Angeles, and all $100 from a customer in Oregon. If you have approximate knowledge of how your demand breaks down, you could come up with an all-inclusive price that produces the average bottom-line revenue you want.
      - thephyber 3y ago
        You seem to be hand-waving away the accounting part and the fact that the subtotals for the same goods will be different for users in different cities. Still not a good user experience.
- noodlesUK 3y ago
  Thank you for clearing that up - I was under the mistaken impression that most goods were subject to sales tax in the US, even in b2b transactions. I was not aware that most entities other than individual people were tax exempt. That makes the end result a lot more similar to VAT than I thought it was (though with a different way of getting there). Given all that, why would we use a VAT system rather than sales tax? So that the revenue is more evenly spread across the lifetime of a good or service?
  - COM9 3y ago
    It's funny because I think both you and GP answered it? If the end result is almost the same, then... the reasons why one or the other is... Almost none really? Or to put it another way, for historical reasons? (I'm playing AC Unity right now... Set in Paris during the French Revolution... And you know what the contemporary city walls were used for? Tax collection purposes...) This kind of stuff should be settled in trade agreements IMHO... Which made me think about a future EU-US trade agreement... But guess what? Fucking Trump torpioed it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_Trade_and_Investment_Partnership https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_Trade_and_Inve...
Tommstein 3y ago
> I stayed at a hotel in NYC relatively recently, and I booked and pre-paid through hotels.com. When I arrived, the hotel sprung me with a $50/night "resort fee", which was apparently required to stay at the hotel (though I am sure they would tell regulators that it's optional). The king of those is Las Vegas. I have literally removed Las Vegas as the possible destination for trips before when I remembered their resort fee bullshit and got pissed off. I don't know how those things are even legal, other than the government gets their cut too so screw visitors.
phantom784 3y ago
Not including sales tax kind of makes sense, because it varies so much state to state (and often within the state). This allows companies to advertise one price nationwide.
- wepple 3y ago
  Yeah, what the above says I also don’t hate the side effect that it somewhat points out to you that it’s the govt taking a cut It sure is nice in most of the rest of the developed world to buy a product or service and immediately know how many dollars have to go from me to them because it’s the one price, though.
  - noodlesUK 3y ago
    > I also don’t hate the side effect that it somewhat points out to you that it’s the govt taking a cut In every place I have been to, the receipt or invoice has a line item saying how much tax was payable on the transaction. Not least so that business customers can reclaim VAT in countries that have VAT. Different items also often have different tax rates, which is especially noticeable at somewhere like a supermarket where you might buy food, other goods, and alcohol in one transaction.
    - wepple 3y ago
      Sure, of course it does. How often do you look at it, and think through what portion is actually going to the business? Tax-not-included prices do that automatically.
- noodlesUK 3y ago
  Surely your inventory/POS systems need to know what price/tax rates to charge anyway. I understand your point in the context of an ad in a magazine offering a good at a particular price, but I don't think it makes sense at all in the context of a store with tickets on items that don't actually correspond to the price at the till.
- kshacker 3y ago
JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> When I arrived, the hotel sprung me with a $50/night "resort fee" If you voice your objection, follow up in writing, and have a decent credit card, you can almost certainly get it charged back. Because the hotel is not going to say, in writing, it isn’t optional. (You may not be welcome back.)
- StanislavPetrov 3y ago
  Most if not all hotel/casinos I've stayed at in Vegas and Atlantic city have added a mandatory "resort fee" for many years, and will happily tell you to go pound sound if you try to argue about it!
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - dghlsakjg 3y ago
    Last time I stayed in Vegas, they did charge a resort fee, but it was disclosed at the time of booking (hotels.com). Still think it’s sleezy, but it wasn’t a surprise at least
  - jopsen 3y ago
    > and will happily tell you to go pound sound if you try to argue about it! Perhaps it's better to leave a review about deceptive pricing on Google Maps, TripAdvisor, etc.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
ezfe 3y ago
Booking.com includes resort fees at checkout. If the website you booked on said it was the final cost, then you can fight it.
- brewdad 3y ago
  I assume it hit the same way my last stay in Vegas worked. I booked and prepaid through a travel site. The travel site made very clear that the hotel would be charging me a resort fee separately. The travel site was unable to collect this fee at my time of payment. When I checked in, they charged me the separate fee. I knew about it and expected it because Vegas but it still felt slimy.
  - ezfe 3y ago
    Oh for sure, I think it's stupid - and I hope that the Government is able to roll out the new rules because mandatory fees should just be part of the stay rate.
rapind 3y ago
> I also don't understand the US practice of not including relevant sales tax charges in the cost of a good. Here in Canada too, but I don't mind. When I feel the pain in my wallet, I want to know where to direct my bitterness. Credit card processing fees should be broken out too IMO.
blincoln 3y ago
Wow. I actually always assumed that the "resort fee" was to cover a hotel-specific tax, but I see that you're right.[1] Seems like a textbook case of manipulative business practices to me. I already felt like the anti-junk-fee law(s) couldn't be passed soon enough, but even more so now. > I also don't understand the US practice of not including relevant sales tax charges in the cost of a good. Sales taxes in general are a horrible can of worms, and IMO every area should migrate to income tax exclusively. [1] https://www.cnn.com/cnn-underscored/travel/how-to-avoid-resort-fees https://www.cnn.com/cnn-underscored/travel/how-to-avoid-reso...
- gamblor956 3y ago
  Indirect taxes (sales taxes, GST, and VAT) are more efficient than income taxes, both from a compliance perspective and a fairness perspective. Compliance-wise, it's easiest to calculate and collect the tax on economic activity when an economic transaction occurs. From a fairness perspective, it's clear when an indirect tax applies; with income taxes you need a convoluted code to address the many types of income possible in a modern society.
  - gruez 3y ago
    >and a fairness perspective. that's arguable when they're not progressive and arguably regressive. Rich people earn more, but they spend less (as % of income) than poor people.
    - pas 3y ago
      it's possible to tax luxury stuff more, etc.
      - gruez 3y ago
        Then that makes it harder to collect/enforce. What counts as luxury? What if someone poor wants to buy a luxury item as a treat?
        3y ago
michaelmrose 3y ago
When traveling cross country years ago with 3 cats I booked a budget at a fleabag motel for like 70 bucks based on part on it being listed as accepting pets. They tried to charge 50 bucks a head non-refundable for the felines then disclaim responsibility for listing these costs because the third party ran the ad.
CSMastermind 3y ago
> I also don't understand the US practice of not including relevant sales tax charges in the cost of a good. The idea is that if it's just baked into the price, customers will ignore it but if it's applied separately customers will consciously recognize the amount of money the government is taking from them and presumably apply pressure not to increase that amount.
- nitwit005 3y ago
  It's not a result of government policy, but corporate policy. The corporations prefer to list the lower price.

Moto7451 3y ago

Regarding US Sales Tax v.s. VAT. Sales Tax is an indirect tax on consumption that is deferred until the end consumer makes a purchased, and taxed in the area they made the purchase (even online since 2018). Some end consumers are tax exempt and can avoid paying Sales Tax. Companies can write off taxes paid where appropriate. Everyone else in the value chain is tax exempt assuming they filed their paperwork correctly. Ultimately this means that there is no equivalent to a VAT recovery, reverse charing, etc, and the governments that collect sales tax don't see any money if something is never sold. Sales tax is not included in the price because it is based on the price. If a widget is sold for $10 today, there is less tax paid if you sell that widget for $1 tomorrow. It doesn't matter if $9 of additional value was created along the way. States, counties, and cities can have different sales tax rates for various reasons. For example, my city voted to add to the sales tax to pay for road improvements. There is a lot of travel into our area for consumption so it ends up that visitors pay for roads even if they don't refuel their cars in the city. Sales Tax and VAT are not bad ideas, they're just different ideas. At the end of the day if your government wants a Dollar, a Pound, or a Euro, they'll find a way to raise it.

kibwen 3y ago
Regardless of the distinction between sales tax and VAT, if any given US state wanted to have the state sales tax be included in the price that is shown to the end-user (at least in physical stores that exist in that state), I don't think there's any federal law preventing them from doing so. In other words, rather than having the store list a pack of gum for $1.00 and then charging me $1.06 at the register, the state could just require that the store list the pack of gum at $1.06. If that means the price of a can of Arizona Tea has to vary by, like, two cents when you cross state lines, that's a worthwhile tradeoff.
- thephyber 3y ago
  Sales Tax rates vary by the address and don’t apply to some goods/services. Additionally, some states have holidays (like “back to school no sales tax days”). That is to say that the retailer needs the recipient’s address before shopping, rather than after. Also, if sales tax is handled by an external API call, those costs would increase drastically if the same call must be made for each product listing price, as opposed to just a few at the end of checkout flow.
  - hakfoo 3y ago
    The bajillion-jurisdictions problem can be solved on an aggregate basis. Charge everyone $100 inclusive-of-taxes. Keep $93.50 of that from a customer in Phoenix, $92.75 from a customer in Los Angeles, and all $100 from a customer in Oregon. If you have approximate knowledge of how your demand breaks down, you could come up with an all-inclusive price that produces the average bottom-line revenue you want.
    - thephyber 3y ago
      You seem to be hand-waving away the accounting part and the fact that the subtotals for the same goods will be different for users in different cities. Still not a good user experience.
noodlesUK 3y ago
Thank you for clearing that up - I was under the mistaken impression that most goods were subject to sales tax in the US, even in b2b transactions. I was not aware that most entities other than individual people were tax exempt. That makes the end result a lot more similar to VAT than I thought it was (though with a different way of getting there). Given all that, why would we use a VAT system rather than sales tax? So that the revenue is more evenly spread across the lifetime of a good or service?
- COM9 3y ago
  It's funny because I think both you and GP answered it? If the end result is almost the same, then... the reasons why one or the other is... Almost none really? Or to put it another way, for historical reasons? (I'm playing AC Unity right now... Set in Paris during the French Revolution... And you know what the contemporary city walls were used for? Tax collection purposes...) This kind of stuff should be settled in trade agreements IMHO... Which made me think about a future EU-US trade agreement... But guess what? Fucking Trump torpioed it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_Trade_and_Investment_Partnership https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_Trade_and_Inve...

Tommstein 3y ago

> I stayed at a hotel in NYC relatively recently, and I booked and pre-paid through hotels.com. When I arrived, the hotel sprung me with a $50/night "resort fee", which was apparently required to stay at the hotel (though I am sure they would tell regulators that it's optional). The king of those is Las Vegas. I have literally removed Las Vegas as the possible destination for trips before when I remembered their resort fee bullshit and got pissed off. I don't know how those things are even legal, other than the government gets their cut too so screw visitors.

phantom784 3y ago

Not including sales tax kind of makes sense, because it varies so much state to state (and often within the state). This allows companies to advertise one price nationwide.

wepple 3y ago
Yeah, what the above says I also don’t hate the side effect that it somewhat points out to you that it’s the govt taking a cut It sure is nice in most of the rest of the developed world to buy a product or service and immediately know how many dollars have to go from me to them because it’s the one price, though.
- noodlesUK 3y ago
  > I also don’t hate the side effect that it somewhat points out to you that it’s the govt taking a cut In every place I have been to, the receipt or invoice has a line item saying how much tax was payable on the transaction. Not least so that business customers can reclaim VAT in countries that have VAT. Different items also often have different tax rates, which is especially noticeable at somewhere like a supermarket where you might buy food, other goods, and alcohol in one transaction.
  - wepple 3y ago
    Sure, of course it does. How often do you look at it, and think through what portion is actually going to the business? Tax-not-included prices do that automatically.
noodlesUK 3y ago
Surely your inventory/POS systems need to know what price/tax rates to charge anyway. I understand your point in the context of an ad in a magazine offering a good at a particular price, but I don't think it makes sense at all in the context of a store with tickets on items that don't actually correspond to the price at the till.
kshacker 3y ago

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

> When I arrived, the hotel sprung me with a $50/night "resort fee" If you voice your objection, follow up in writing, and have a decent credit card, you can almost certainly get it charged back. Because the hotel is not going to say, in writing, it isn’t optional. (You may not be welcome back.)

StanislavPetrov 3y ago
Most if not all hotel/casinos I've stayed at in Vegas and Atlantic city have added a mandatory "resort fee" for many years, and will happily tell you to go pound sound if you try to argue about it!
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- dghlsakjg 3y ago
  Last time I stayed in Vegas, they did charge a resort fee, but it was disclosed at the time of booking (hotels.com). Still think it’s sleezy, but it wasn’t a surprise at least
- jopsen 3y ago
  > and will happily tell you to go pound sound if you try to argue about it! Perhaps it's better to leave a review about deceptive pricing on Google Maps, TripAdvisor, etc.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

ezfe 3y ago

Booking.com includes resort fees at checkout. If the website you booked on said it was the final cost, then you can fight it.

brewdad 3y ago
I assume it hit the same way my last stay in Vegas worked. I booked and prepaid through a travel site. The travel site made very clear that the hotel would be charging me a resort fee separately. The travel site was unable to collect this fee at my time of payment. When I checked in, they charged me the separate fee. I knew about it and expected it because Vegas but it still felt slimy.
- ezfe 3y ago
  Oh for sure, I think it's stupid - and I hope that the Government is able to roll out the new rules because mandatory fees should just be part of the stay rate.

rapind 3y ago

> I also don't understand the US practice of not including relevant sales tax charges in the cost of a good. Here in Canada too, but I don't mind. When I feel the pain in my wallet, I want to know where to direct my bitterness. Credit card processing fees should be broken out too IMO.

blincoln 3y ago

Wow. I actually always assumed that the "resort fee" was to cover a hotel-specific tax, but I see that you're right.[1] Seems like a textbook case of manipulative business practices to me. I already felt like the anti-junk-fee law(s) couldn't be passed soon enough, but even more so now. > I also don't understand the US practice of not including relevant sales tax charges in the cost of a good. Sales taxes in general are a horrible can of worms, and IMO every area should migrate to income tax exclusively. [1] https://www.cnn.com/cnn-underscored/travel/how-to-avoid-resort-fees https://www.cnn.com/cnn-underscored/travel/how-to-avoid-reso...

gamblor956 3y ago
Indirect taxes (sales taxes, GST, and VAT) are more efficient than income taxes, both from a compliance perspective and a fairness perspective. Compliance-wise, it's easiest to calculate and collect the tax on economic activity when an economic transaction occurs. From a fairness perspective, it's clear when an indirect tax applies; with income taxes you need a convoluted code to address the many types of income possible in a modern society.
- gruez 3y ago
  >and a fairness perspective. that's arguable when they're not progressive and arguably regressive. Rich people earn more, but they spend less (as % of income) than poor people.
  - pas 3y ago
    it's possible to tax luxury stuff more, etc.
    - gruez 3y ago
      Then that makes it harder to collect/enforce. What counts as luxury? What if someone poor wants to buy a luxury item as a treat?
      - 3y ago

michaelmrose 3y ago

When traveling cross country years ago with 3 cats I booked a budget at a fleabag motel for like 70 bucks based on part on it being listed as accepting pets. They tried to charge 50 bucks a head non-refundable for the felines then disclaim responsibility for listing these costs because the third party ran the ad.

CSMastermind 3y ago

> I also don't understand the US practice of not including relevant sales tax charges in the cost of a good. The idea is that if it's just baked into the price, customers will ignore it but if it's applied separately customers will consciously recognize the amount of money the government is taking from them and presumably apply pressure not to increase that amount.

nitwit005 3y ago
It's not a result of government policy, but corporate policy. The corporations prefer to list the lower price.