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I have no idea what you are going on about. If you advertise 9.99, it’s 9.99. Sales tax isn’t THAT different between jurisdictions, so we are talking about the

I have no idea what you are going on about. If you advertise 9.99, it’s 9.99. Sales tax isn’t THAT different between jurisdictions, so we are talking about the seller having to lose a small percentage of margin. Sales are mostly about moving items, so they are already losing huge margins at that point anyway. Anyway, you can always advertise 9.99 + tax and show the actual price with tax in the store tags.

AnthonyMouse 2y ago
> Sales tax isn’t THAT different between jurisdictions, so we are talking about the seller having to lose a small percentage of margin. California has a 7.25% sales tax. Oregon has a 0% sales tax. A 7.25% difference is larger than the entire net margin on many products. > Sales are mostly about moving items, so they are already losing huge margins at that point anyway. It seems like we've now gone from "there is no reason they can't do this" to "the merchant can just eat the sales tax and go out of business"? > Anyway, you can always advertise 9.99 + tax and show the actual price with tax in the store tags. Which is basically what they do now. You see the final price at the register before you pay. You also know that there is going to be sales tax, no one is being misled. Putting a different price on the tags than there is on the ad would just confuse people and make it harder to tell when you're not getting the advertised price because you have to do fractional arithmetic on every soup can and candy bar to see if it matches.
- withinboredom 2y ago
  Don’t advertise California prices in Oregon? I was referring to city/county taxes, not state taxes. Tor example, a local city to me in the US had a total of 14% sales tax, while outside the city was 10%. Anyway, a sale’s motivation is to move products off the shelf and make room for more profitable products; they’re already losing money.
  - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
    > Don’t advertise California prices in Oregon? California borders with Oregon. Radio waves cross state lines. People see highway billboards and then drive into another state. People use the internet and you don't know where they are. > Anyway, a sale’s motivation is to move products off the shelf and make room for more profitable products; they’re already losing money. A sale's purpose is frequently to bring customers into the store to buy other products, or get customers to try a product for the first time to drive repeat business. There is also plenty of advertising that isn't discounts. Maybe your product is great and you want to inform the customer that they can get something better than the competition for the same price. Maybe you're just publishing a comprehensive price list for all your products. And in all cases, "losing money" is not a binary result. Losing a small amount, or not making as much as you wanted to, is very different from losing so much that you go out of business.
    - withinboredom 2y ago
      If businesses go out of business from paying taxes, maybe they shouldn’t be in business. This isn’t a problem in the EU where countries border other countries and sales tax varies from 6-19-24%… so clearly this is a delusional problem that doesn’t actually exist.
      - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
        > If businesses go out of business from paying taxes, maybe they shouldn’t be in business. This statement has always been BS. If you set the tax rate to a percentage of revenue which exceeds the business's margins, all businesses go out of business. "Maybe grocery stores shouldn't be in business" is so absurd that the statement seems designed to deliberately shut down reasoned debate by stunning people into silence or making them so angry they respond rashly. And in this context it doesn't even apply. The issue here is that customers in Oregon are going to pay a lower price than customers in California because Oregon has lower sales tax and the tax is part of the price they pay. The business can't eat the tax in California so their only alternative would be to advertise the higher price. But if they have to advertise the higher price then many of them will just charge the higher price everywhere so all you're doing is screwing customers in the jurisdiction with lower taxes out of paying lower prices. This also reduces competition by making it harder for customers to compare prices, because a store that only operates in a state with lower taxes would then seem to have lower prices than one that operates in multiple states and has to advertise the highest price, even if it didn't charge you the highest price where you actually are. > This isn’t a problem in the EU where countries border other countries and sales tax varies from 6-19-24% Or it is a problem and you're just eating the cost of getting screwed by the law while defending it.

AnthonyMouse 2y ago

> Sales tax isn’t THAT different between jurisdictions, so we are talking about the seller having to lose a small percentage of margin. California has a 7.25% sales tax. Oregon has a 0% sales tax. A 7.25% difference is larger than the entire net margin on many products. > Sales are mostly about moving items, so they are already losing huge margins at that point anyway. It seems like we've now gone from "there is no reason they can't do this" to "the merchant can just eat the sales tax and go out of business"? > Anyway, you can always advertise 9.99 + tax and show the actual price with tax in the store tags. Which is basically what they do now. You see the final price at the register before you pay. You also know that there is going to be sales tax, no one is being misled. Putting a different price on the tags than there is on the ad would just confuse people and make it harder to tell when you're not getting the advertised price because you have to do fractional arithmetic on every soup can and candy bar to see if it matches.

withinboredom 2y ago
Don’t advertise California prices in Oregon? I was referring to city/county taxes, not state taxes. Tor example, a local city to me in the US had a total of 14% sales tax, while outside the city was 10%. Anyway, a sale’s motivation is to move products off the shelf and make room for more profitable products; they’re already losing money.
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  > Don’t advertise California prices in Oregon? California borders with Oregon. Radio waves cross state lines. People see highway billboards and then drive into another state. People use the internet and you don't know where they are. > Anyway, a sale’s motivation is to move products off the shelf and make room for more profitable products; they’re already losing money. A sale's purpose is frequently to bring customers into the store to buy other products, or get customers to try a product for the first time to drive repeat business. There is also plenty of advertising that isn't discounts. Maybe your product is great and you want to inform the customer that they can get something better than the competition for the same price. Maybe you're just publishing a comprehensive price list for all your products. And in all cases, "losing money" is not a binary result. Losing a small amount, or not making as much as you wanted to, is very different from losing so much that you go out of business.
  - withinboredom 2y ago
    If businesses go out of business from paying taxes, maybe they shouldn’t be in business. This isn’t a problem in the EU where countries border other countries and sales tax varies from 6-19-24%… so clearly this is a delusional problem that doesn’t actually exist.
    - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
      > If businesses go out of business from paying taxes, maybe they shouldn’t be in business. This statement has always been BS. If you set the tax rate to a percentage of revenue which exceeds the business's margins, all businesses go out of business. "Maybe grocery stores shouldn't be in business" is so absurd that the statement seems designed to deliberately shut down reasoned debate by stunning people into silence or making them so angry they respond rashly. And in this context it doesn't even apply. The issue here is that customers in Oregon are going to pay a lower price than customers in California because Oregon has lower sales tax and the tax is part of the price they pay. The business can't eat the tax in California so their only alternative would be to advertise the higher price. But if they have to advertise the higher price then many of them will just charge the higher price everywhere so all you're doing is screwing customers in the jurisdiction with lower taxes out of paying lower prices. This also reduces competition by making it harder for customers to compare prices, because a store that only operates in a state with lower taxes would then seem to have lower prices than one that operates in multiple states and has to advertise the highest price, even if it didn't charge you the highest price where you actually are. > This isn’t a problem in the EU where countries border other countries and sales tax varies from 6-19-24% Or it is a problem and you're just eating the cost of getting screwed by the law while defending it.