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I'm fine with this as long as they include the tariff in the listed price. I'm worried businesses are going to use tariffs as an excuse to have a fake list pri

I'm fine with this as long as they include the tariff in the listed price. I'm worried businesses are going to use tariffs as an excuse to have a fake list price, then hit you with massive hidden fees at the point of sale. Some sectors have been doing this for years - "service fees" at restaurants, "regulatory response fees" in the telecom industry, all sorts of nonsense in event ticketing. Physical goods have mostly been spared this type of fake pricing - aside from sales tax not being included, but that's been universally true in the US forever so everyone is used to it. Tariffs could be the end of that if businesses see sales plummet. Especially because these scams actually work - the reason restaurants give for not just increasing their menu prices is because higher listed prices drive people away.

clbrmbr 1y ago
100% this. I’d take it a step further and say that sales tax should be included when you are logged in and it can be anticipated, like is the case in most other countries.
- bluGill 1y ago
  Sales tax cannot be per-calculated, since it is charged on the total sale. Rounding errors will get you. (when I worked fast food 30 years ago one value meal was $3.18, but two were $6.27) The government pays attention to this type of thing and they will get you for those pennies. (remember there are many governments, it is possibly all the local governments in question would decide not to pay attention, but that doesn't mean those rules apply to someone else who lives in a different area and thus has different local governments)
  - pentamassiv 1y ago
    Sure it can. It works perfectly fine in many other countries.
    - xienze 1y ago
      There's a slight difference between having one tax rate at the country level and having numerous differing state and local sales tax rates. You don't even know what to charge the customer until you know their exact location.
      - ceejayoz 1y ago
        Other countries have states and cities, too. (And in the fast food example, the customer's home location doesn't matter. The store's does.)
        xienze 1y ago
        But do they have the same kind of state and local sales tax rules that we do? Again, _you can't know the price to display if you don't know where exactly in the country the package is going_. It is not possible to display the "final price" in US online stores ahead of checkout unless the user is already logged in AND the shipping address is the same as where the user lives. The juice is not worth the squeeze for online retailers. Users are used to seeing the final amount at checkout and you know, it's really not that hard to mentally estimate <price of thing I'm buying plus 10%> (which is actually usually an overestimate).
        ceejayoz 1y ago
        That's an argument for fixing the rules. As functional rules in this regard are clearly possible to create. The EU has a similar smattering of disparate jurisdictions (with varying VAT rates) just like the US does.
        xienze 1y ago
        Googling says 27 tax jurisdictions in the EU versus over 13000 in the US. Again, not quite as simple as you're making it out to be. And for what? Making the checkout process slightly more convenient for people who lack the mental ability to estimate their total?
  - ceejayoz 1y ago
    > Sales tax cannot be per-calculated, since it is charged on the total sale. Most of the developed world pre-calculates sales tax. If McDonalds charges you $10.32 in Australia, the government gets $0.84(8181812...) of it. Rounding isn't an issue because you don't write a check for each individual $0.84(8181812...), you pay them the aggregate amount on a regular basis.
    - Eisenstein 1y ago
      Here is a list of 20 district sales taxes in California alone (out of ~150). Los Angeles County Measure H: 0.25%, 10-01-2017 to 03-31-2025 City of Orland Transactions and Use Tax: 0.50%, 04-01-2017 to 03-31-2025 Rio Dell City Transactions and Use Tax: 1.00%, 04-01-2015 to 12-31-2024 City of El Monte Transactions and Use Tax: 0.50%, 04-01-2009 to 03-31-2025 City of San Pablo Reduction Transactions and Use Tax: 0.25%, 10-01-2017 to 09-30-2022 Town of Truckee Trails Transactions and Use Tax: 0.25%, 10-01-2014 to 09-30-2024 City of La Habra Transactions and Use Tax: 0.50%, 04-01-2009 to 03-31-2025 City of Seal Beach Transactions and Use Tax: 1.00%, 04-01-2019 to 03-31-2025 City of Westminster Transactions and Use Tax: 1.00%, 04-01-2017 to 12-31-2022 City of Pismo Beach Transactions and Use Tax: 0.50%, 10-01-2008 to 03-31-2025 Pacific Grove City Transactions and Use Tax: 1.00%, 10-01-2008 to 09-30-2022 Town of San Anselmo Transactions and Use Tax: 0.50%, 04-01-2014 to 03-31-2023 City of Sausalito 2014 Transactions and Use Tax: 0.50%, 04-01-2015 to 03-31-2023 Mariposa County Healthcare Transactions and Use Tax: 0.50%, 04-01-2005 to 03-31-2025 Mendocino County Mental Health Treatment Act Tax: 0.50%, 04-01-2018 to 03-31-2023 Mendocino Library Special Transactions and Use Tax: 0.125%, 04-01-2012 to 03-31-2023 City of Atwater Public Safety Transactions and Use Tax: 0.50%, 07-01-2013 to 03-31-2023 City of Capitola Transactions and Use Tax: 0.25%, 04-01-2005 to 03-31-2025 City of Campbell Vital City Services Transactions and Use Tax: 0.25%, 04-01-2009 to 03-31-2025 City of Davis Transactions and Use Tax: 1.00%, 10-01-2014 to 03-31-2025 * https://www.cdtfa.ca.gov/formspubs/cdtfa105.pdf https://www.cdtfa.ca.gov/formspubs/cdtfa105.pdf
      - ceejayoz 1y ago
        Yes. This is silly. We should change it. (But it's largely an issue for online sales, not physical locations. The McDonalds in San Anselmo, barring The Big One, stays in San Anselmo.) See also: American healthcare, college, etc. "Our setup is absurdly complex in bad ways" is not an argument for keeping that setup, it's an argument for making fixes.
  - AStonesThrow 1y ago
    > one value meal was $3.18, but two were $6.27 That sure is a HUGE rounding error! 9¢ savings by doubling up is nothing to sneeze at! > they will get you for those pennies Was your restaurant ever audited? That is a lot of pennies!
    - bluGill 1y ago
      Opps, my memory of prices is obviously wrong after 30 years. I can't tell you which number is right though. One penny times the thousand or so meals per day over a year adds up. I don't know if we were audited - but I' s we would have been shut down for failing the audit.
- blululu 1y ago
  Agreed in practice, but there is a key difference: sales tax is uniform for all products, import tariffs are not. As a customer I want to effectively compare prices between different options. For sales tax you can simply assume a uniform 9% bump. For tariffs the fee varies for comparable products. I would prefer knowing the full price ahead of times but I absolutely need to know the relative price ranking.
  - phil21 1y ago
    > but there is a key difference: sales tax is uniform for all products Sales tax is not uniform for all products depending on your state. My home state for example does not charge sales tax on food items and clothing. Some other special categories also have different sales tax depending on what they are - e.g. vice taxes for some items.
    - xsmasher 1y ago
      Technically right but doesn't change their point. Sales tax is uniform for comparable products, tariffs are not.
gherkinnn 1y ago
I expect businesses to bump prices. Bump em because of tariffs, bump em some more to pad the margins because what is an extra 5%, bump em even when they're not affected by tariffs because everyone else is doing so, and delay un-bumping them once tariffs fall again.
- ceejayoz 1y ago
  Yup. My grocery store raised bananas from 49¢/pound to 55¢/pound this week, with a sign about 10% tariffs… but the tariff would be on their wholesale costs, not the shelf costs. They're probably paying 1-2¢/pound extra. People have a hard enough time understanding who pays tariffs. Stores'll be able to muddy the waters this way pretty much at will.
  - Aurornis 1y ago
    Grocery stores have famously low margins. Everyone thinks they’re cash cows, but they have some of the thinnest profit margins of common consumer businesses. Stores often sell common staples like bananas, generic milk, and other basics at close to cost. They’re the things that get people in the door. They make their profit on things like cereal, deli meats, packaged goods, and other non-staple items that people also buy once they’re inside. It’s similar to how many gas stations compete on cost of gas to get people there, but hope that you’ll stop inside and get a $6 drink or some $5 packaged snacks. Then you have to consider all of the other things that go into a store are also tariffed. The parts for the trucks that transport the bananas have tariffs. Many of their cleaning supplies. Parts for the checkout registers. The light bulbs they have to replace. Many of those tariffs could be well over 100%. They have to make up that price in the cost of bananas and everything else.
    - ceejayoz 1y ago
      Low margins, high volume. The family owners of our regional privately held grocery store chain (Wegmans) are worth billions. They're making plenty.
      - 1y ago
dboreham 1y ago
Perhaps whoever decided to impose massive sales taxes (tariffs) should have thought of that?
throwaway7894 1y ago
In stores yes, but on the Internet, including it in the price makes it easier to bump up prices. Showing the price without tariff allows you to easily compare before / after, and then when you see tariff added to your bottom line order (e.g. on Amazon) it should drive home the point that tariffs are a tax paid for by the consumers (which unfortunately lots of people still dont believe).
- zmgsabst 1y ago
  I actually think that would backfire: I see two items for $5, but when I add the imported one, suddenly it costs more — and Amazon didn’t tell me that ahead of time or give me any way to choose the one without tariffs on the grid/list view. This makes tariffs more effective because they can’t bump the domestic price to match — while giving customers a negative chock each time they choose an importer for a product.
  - sowbug 1y ago
    You say this as if the domestic seller wouldn't also raise prices.
    - Yeul 1y ago
      I certainly would! If the foreign competition is now cut off I'd raise prices just below them. To do otherwise would be stupid. This is were tariffs can go horribly wrong: it destroys the incentive for competition between companies.
  - throwaway7894 1y ago
    In your example, why would the domestic seller keep their price at $5 if the other option costs $15? They'll just raise the price of the domestic good to $13 and we will all pay $8 extra on a thing that used to cost $5. If the price displayed is still $5 but tariffs added at the end, the domestic seller's $13 sticker price will not look attractive to buyers.
    - 1y ago
Aissen 1y ago
> aside from sales tax not being included, but that's been universally true in the US forever so everyone is used to it. Why are you putting this under the rug so easily? It's never too late to changes those ludicrous behaviors, even if everyone is accustomed to it.
- CivBase 1y ago
  Probably because it's just not as impactful as hidden tariff costs would be. Sales tax is relatively small and consistent. Depending on the product a tariff could be negligable or it could double the sticker price and the customer would have no way of knowing until checkout.
- crazygringo 1y ago
  It's not about being used to it. There's good reason sales tax isn't included in the price, which is that sales tax varies locally. It isn't even the same per ZIP code. You couldn't advertise a statewide or nationwide price if you had to include sales tax. You couldn't display prices online at all until you entered your full address, which seems antithetical to privacy. This is different from most other countries, where the tax is the same nation-wide.
  - mrguyorama 1y ago
    This is a distraction. The regional supermarket chain in new england that is owned by kroger ALREADY localizes their weekly sales flyer TO THE STORE despite every store in the state having the exact same tax rates. They STILL don't include the tax in the price listed because fuck you, this is america
    - gruez 1y ago
      >The regional supermarket chain in new england that is owned by kroger ALREADY localizes their weekly sales flyer TO THE STORE despite every store in the state having the exact same tax rates. Do they actually "localizes their weekly sales flyer TO THE STORE", or you only think that way because they ask for the exact store location to view their flyers? It could very well be that they ask the exact store for analytics purposes, but all the stores have the same flyer.
ryandrake 1y ago
It’s kind of petty to list tariffs as a separate line item and not all the other costs that contribute to the final price. Why just the tariffs, unless Amazon is trying to make a political point? It strikes me as just as petty as when restaurants started listing “Living Wage Fee” on their bills. They’re bitching and moaning directly to the customer just because they need to pay their staff more and they’re butthurt about it. Why not list all the restaurant’s costs as line items on the bill? They could list the customer’s proportion of the restaurant’s rent, electricity charge, water bill, licensing and taxes if they wanted to. But no, all they put in your face is the Living Wage Fee.
- ceejayoz 1y ago
  > Why just the tariffs, unless Amazon is trying to make a political point? Why would they not want to make this political point?
- xnx 1y ago
  > It’s kind of petty to list tariffs as a separate line item and not all the other costs that contribute to the final price I can see that, but these tariffs seem unique in that they are 1) sudden 2) significant 3) broad 4) totally unmotivated
  - ceejayoz 1y ago
    And 5) change unpredictably and rapidly. Rates that change from day to day is a serious problem when shipping containers on a boat takes weeks or months.
- bathtub365 1y ago
  This seems in line with other government taxes on goods that the consumer ends up paying, like sales tax.
- echoangle 1y ago
  They are making a point, probably hoping that it will help abolish the tariffs (which they fear will reduce their profit by reducing consumption).
breadwinner 1y ago
> Some sectors have been doing this for years - "service fees" at restaurants... If the additional fees is government-forced, such as taxes, then it makes sense to display it separately. You are throwing government-forced costs and regular business costs in the same bucket. If tariffs should be included in the listed price then why not taxes?
- Arainach 1y ago
  These generally aren't taxes. These are conservative business owners complaining about having to pay a living wage rather than a poverty wage. When the rent goes up, the prices change. When insurance goes up, prices change. When labor costs go up it's a "service charge"? That's garbage, just set your prices accordingly.
  - breadwinner 1y ago
    Tariffs are not labor costs.
    - Arainach 1y ago
      This thread is about "service fees" at restaraunts.
- pentamassiv 1y ago
  I think they want the price to be the amount they will have to pay to get the item or service. On the bill you can then split up the price into taxes, tariffs and whatever else you want so they are not thrown into the same bucket. That way there's no surprise at the checkout and you still see how much of the money goes to whom. It works very well in the rest of the world
  - breadwinner 1y ago
    The reason that works in the rest of the world is, taxes are the same throughout the country. For example in the UK, the standard VAT rate (20%) applies uniformly to most goods, throughout the UK. So the price can be printed on the label. In the US some states have no sales tax at all, for example Oregon.
pentamassiv 1y ago
A few days ago I tried ordering a bottle cage for my bike from the US. The price was 22.95€. At the checkout, they added a "Tariff Recovery fee" of 1.84€. On top of that, they charged 60.25€ for shipping. The grand total was 80.04€. I stopped trying to buy stuff from the US, because there's always a ton of added costs
floxy 1y ago
>Especially because these scams actually work - the reason restaurants give for not just increasing their menu prices is because higher listed prices drive people away. Is there a good way to account for the loss of customers from this practice? I have certainly opted out of restaurants with extra fees.

clbrmbr 1y ago

100% this. I’d take it a step further and say that sales tax should be included when you are logged in and it can be anticipated, like is the case in most other countries.

bluGill 1y ago
Sales tax cannot be per-calculated, since it is charged on the total sale. Rounding errors will get you. (when I worked fast food 30 years ago one value meal was $3.18, but two were $6.27) The government pays attention to this type of thing and they will get you for those pennies. (remember there are many governments, it is possibly all the local governments in question would decide not to pay attention, but that doesn't mean those rules apply to someone else who lives in a different area and thus has different local governments)
- pentamassiv 1y ago
  Sure it can. It works perfectly fine in many other countries.
  - xienze 1y ago
    There's a slight difference between having one tax rate at the country level and having numerous differing state and local sales tax rates. You don't even know what to charge the customer until you know their exact location.
    - ceejayoz 1y ago
      Other countries have states and cities, too. (And in the fast food example, the customer's home location doesn't matter. The store's does.)
      - xienze 1y ago
        But do they have the same kind of state and local sales tax rules that we do? Again, _you can't know the price to display if you don't know where exactly in the country the package is going_. It is not possible to display the "final price" in US online stores ahead of checkout unless the user is already logged in AND the shipping address is the same as where the user lives. The juice is not worth the squeeze for online retailers. Users are used to seeing the final amount at checkout and you know, it's really not that hard to mentally estimate <price of thing I'm buying plus 10%> (which is actually usually an overestimate).
        ceejayoz 1y ago
        That's an argument for fixing the rules. As functional rules in this regard are clearly possible to create. The EU has a similar smattering of disparate jurisdictions (with varying VAT rates) just like the US does.
        xienze 1y ago
        Googling says 27 tax jurisdictions in the EU versus over 13000 in the US. Again, not quite as simple as you're making it out to be. And for what? Making the checkout process slightly more convenient for people who lack the mental ability to estimate their total?
- ceejayoz 1y ago
  > Sales tax cannot be per-calculated, since it is charged on the total sale. Most of the developed world pre-calculates sales tax. If McDonalds charges you $10.32 in Australia, the government gets $0.84(8181812...) of it. Rounding isn't an issue because you don't write a check for each individual $0.84(8181812...), you pay them the aggregate amount on a regular basis.
  - Eisenstein 1y ago
    Here is a list of 20 district sales taxes in California alone (out of ~150). Los Angeles County Measure H: 0.25%, 10-01-2017 to 03-31-2025 City of Orland Transactions and Use Tax: 0.50%, 04-01-2017 to 03-31-2025 Rio Dell City Transactions and Use Tax: 1.00%, 04-01-2015 to 12-31-2024 City of El Monte Transactions and Use Tax: 0.50%, 04-01-2009 to 03-31-2025 City of San Pablo Reduction Transactions and Use Tax: 0.25%, 10-01-2017 to 09-30-2022 Town of Truckee Trails Transactions and Use Tax: 0.25%, 10-01-2014 to 09-30-2024 City of La Habra Transactions and Use Tax: 0.50%, 04-01-2009 to 03-31-2025 City of Seal Beach Transactions and Use Tax: 1.00%, 04-01-2019 to 03-31-2025 City of Westminster Transactions and Use Tax: 1.00%, 04-01-2017 to 12-31-2022 City of Pismo Beach Transactions and Use Tax: 0.50%, 10-01-2008 to 03-31-2025 Pacific Grove City Transactions and Use Tax: 1.00%, 10-01-2008 to 09-30-2022 Town of San Anselmo Transactions and Use Tax: 0.50%, 04-01-2014 to 03-31-2023 City of Sausalito 2014 Transactions and Use Tax: 0.50%, 04-01-2015 to 03-31-2023 Mariposa County Healthcare Transactions and Use Tax: 0.50%, 04-01-2005 to 03-31-2025 Mendocino County Mental Health Treatment Act Tax: 0.50%, 04-01-2018 to 03-31-2023 Mendocino Library Special Transactions and Use Tax: 0.125%, 04-01-2012 to 03-31-2023 City of Atwater Public Safety Transactions and Use Tax: 0.50%, 07-01-2013 to 03-31-2023 City of Capitola Transactions and Use Tax: 0.25%, 04-01-2005 to 03-31-2025 City of Campbell Vital City Services Transactions and Use Tax: 0.25%, 04-01-2009 to 03-31-2025 City of Davis Transactions and Use Tax: 1.00%, 10-01-2014 to 03-31-2025 * https://www.cdtfa.ca.gov/formspubs/cdtfa105.pdf https://www.cdtfa.ca.gov/formspubs/cdtfa105.pdf
    - ceejayoz 1y ago
      Yes. This is silly. We should change it. (But it's largely an issue for online sales, not physical locations. The McDonalds in San Anselmo, barring The Big One, stays in San Anselmo.) See also: American healthcare, college, etc. "Our setup is absurdly complex in bad ways" is not an argument for keeping that setup, it's an argument for making fixes.
- AStonesThrow 1y ago
  > one value meal was $3.18, but two were $6.27 That sure is a HUGE rounding error! 9¢ savings by doubling up is nothing to sneeze at! > they will get you for those pennies Was your restaurant ever audited? That is a lot of pennies!
  - bluGill 1y ago
    Opps, my memory of prices is obviously wrong after 30 years. I can't tell you which number is right though. One penny times the thousand or so meals per day over a year adds up. I don't know if we were audited - but I' s we would have been shut down for failing the audit.
blululu 1y ago
Agreed in practice, but there is a key difference: sales tax is uniform for all products, import tariffs are not. As a customer I want to effectively compare prices between different options. For sales tax you can simply assume a uniform 9% bump. For tariffs the fee varies for comparable products. I would prefer knowing the full price ahead of times but I absolutely need to know the relative price ranking.
- phil21 1y ago
  > but there is a key difference: sales tax is uniform for all products Sales tax is not uniform for all products depending on your state. My home state for example does not charge sales tax on food items and clothing. Some other special categories also have different sales tax depending on what they are - e.g. vice taxes for some items.
  - xsmasher 1y ago
    Technically right but doesn't change their point. Sales tax is uniform for comparable products, tariffs are not.

gherkinnn 1y ago

I expect businesses to bump prices. Bump em because of tariffs, bump em some more to pad the margins because what is an extra 5%, bump em even when they're not affected by tariffs because everyone else is doing so, and delay un-bumping them once tariffs fall again.

ceejayoz 1y ago
Yup. My grocery store raised bananas from 49¢/pound to 55¢/pound this week, with a sign about 10% tariffs… but the tariff would be on their wholesale costs, not the shelf costs. They're probably paying 1-2¢/pound extra. People have a hard enough time understanding who pays tariffs. Stores'll be able to muddy the waters this way pretty much at will.
- Aurornis 1y ago
  Grocery stores have famously low margins. Everyone thinks they’re cash cows, but they have some of the thinnest profit margins of common consumer businesses. Stores often sell common staples like bananas, generic milk, and other basics at close to cost. They’re the things that get people in the door. They make their profit on things like cereal, deli meats, packaged goods, and other non-staple items that people also buy once they’re inside. It’s similar to how many gas stations compete on cost of gas to get people there, but hope that you’ll stop inside and get a $6 drink or some $5 packaged snacks. Then you have to consider all of the other things that go into a store are also tariffed. The parts for the trucks that transport the bananas have tariffs. Many of their cleaning supplies. Parts for the checkout registers. The light bulbs they have to replace. Many of those tariffs could be well over 100%. They have to make up that price in the cost of bananas and everything else.
  - ceejayoz 1y ago
    Low margins, high volume. The family owners of our regional privately held grocery store chain (Wegmans) are worth billions. They're making plenty.
    - 1y ago

dboreham 1y ago

Perhaps whoever decided to impose massive sales taxes (tariffs) should have thought of that?

throwaway7894 1y ago

In stores yes, but on the Internet, including it in the price makes it easier to bump up prices. Showing the price without tariff allows you to easily compare before / after, and then when you see tariff added to your bottom line order (e.g. on Amazon) it should drive home the point that tariffs are a tax paid for by the consumers (which unfortunately lots of people still dont believe).

zmgsabst 1y ago
I actually think that would backfire: I see two items for $5, but when I add the imported one, suddenly it costs more — and Amazon didn’t tell me that ahead of time or give me any way to choose the one without tariffs on the grid/list view. This makes tariffs more effective because they can’t bump the domestic price to match — while giving customers a negative chock each time they choose an importer for a product.
- sowbug 1y ago
  You say this as if the domestic seller wouldn't also raise prices.
  - Yeul 1y ago
    I certainly would! If the foreign competition is now cut off I'd raise prices just below them. To do otherwise would be stupid. This is were tariffs can go horribly wrong: it destroys the incentive for competition between companies.
- throwaway7894 1y ago
  In your example, why would the domestic seller keep their price at $5 if the other option costs $15? They'll just raise the price of the domestic good to $13 and we will all pay $8 extra on a thing that used to cost $5. If the price displayed is still $5 but tariffs added at the end, the domestic seller's $13 sticker price will not look attractive to buyers.
  - 1y ago

Aissen 1y ago

> aside from sales tax not being included, but that's been universally true in the US forever so everyone is used to it. Why are you putting this under the rug so easily? It's never too late to changes those ludicrous behaviors, even if everyone is accustomed to it.

CivBase 1y ago
Probably because it's just not as impactful as hidden tariff costs would be. Sales tax is relatively small and consistent. Depending on the product a tariff could be negligable or it could double the sticker price and the customer would have no way of knowing until checkout.
crazygringo 1y ago
It's not about being used to it. There's good reason sales tax isn't included in the price, which is that sales tax varies locally. It isn't even the same per ZIP code. You couldn't advertise a statewide or nationwide price if you had to include sales tax. You couldn't display prices online at all until you entered your full address, which seems antithetical to privacy. This is different from most other countries, where the tax is the same nation-wide.
- mrguyorama 1y ago
  This is a distraction. The regional supermarket chain in new england that is owned by kroger ALREADY localizes their weekly sales flyer TO THE STORE despite every store in the state having the exact same tax rates. They STILL don't include the tax in the price listed because fuck you, this is america
  - gruez 1y ago
    >The regional supermarket chain in new england that is owned by kroger ALREADY localizes their weekly sales flyer TO THE STORE despite every store in the state having the exact same tax rates. Do they actually "localizes their weekly sales flyer TO THE STORE", or you only think that way because they ask for the exact store location to view their flyers? It could very well be that they ask the exact store for analytics purposes, but all the stores have the same flyer.

ryandrake 1y ago

It’s kind of petty to list tariffs as a separate line item and not all the other costs that contribute to the final price. Why just the tariffs, unless Amazon is trying to make a political point? It strikes me as just as petty as when restaurants started listing “Living Wage Fee” on their bills. They’re bitching and moaning directly to the customer just because they need to pay their staff more and they’re butthurt about it. Why not list all the restaurant’s costs as line items on the bill? They could list the customer’s proportion of the restaurant’s rent, electricity charge, water bill, licensing and taxes if they wanted to. But no, all they put in your face is the Living Wage Fee.

ceejayoz 1y ago
> Why just the tariffs, unless Amazon is trying to make a political point? Why would they not want to make this political point?
xnx 1y ago
> It’s kind of petty to list tariffs as a separate line item and not all the other costs that contribute to the final price I can see that, but these tariffs seem unique in that they are 1) sudden 2) significant 3) broad 4) totally unmotivated
- ceejayoz 1y ago
  And 5) change unpredictably and rapidly. Rates that change from day to day is a serious problem when shipping containers on a boat takes weeks or months.
bathtub365 1y ago
This seems in line with other government taxes on goods that the consumer ends up paying, like sales tax.
echoangle 1y ago
They are making a point, probably hoping that it will help abolish the tariffs (which they fear will reduce their profit by reducing consumption).

breadwinner 1y ago

> Some sectors have been doing this for years - "service fees" at restaurants... If the additional fees is government-forced, such as taxes, then it makes sense to display it separately. You are throwing government-forced costs and regular business costs in the same bucket. If tariffs should be included in the listed price then why not taxes?

Arainach 1y ago
These generally aren't taxes. These are conservative business owners complaining about having to pay a living wage rather than a poverty wage. When the rent goes up, the prices change. When insurance goes up, prices change. When labor costs go up it's a "service charge"? That's garbage, just set your prices accordingly.
- breadwinner 1y ago
  Tariffs are not labor costs.
  - Arainach 1y ago
    This thread is about "service fees" at restaraunts.
pentamassiv 1y ago
I think they want the price to be the amount they will have to pay to get the item or service. On the bill you can then split up the price into taxes, tariffs and whatever else you want so they are not thrown into the same bucket. That way there's no surprise at the checkout and you still see how much of the money goes to whom. It works very well in the rest of the world
- breadwinner 1y ago
  The reason that works in the rest of the world is, taxes are the same throughout the country. For example in the UK, the standard VAT rate (20%) applies uniformly to most goods, throughout the UK. So the price can be printed on the label. In the US some states have no sales tax at all, for example Oregon.

pentamassiv 1y ago

A few days ago I tried ordering a bottle cage for my bike from the US. The price was 22.95€. At the checkout, they added a "Tariff Recovery fee" of 1.84€. On top of that, they charged 60.25€ for shipping. The grand total was 80.04€. I stopped trying to buy stuff from the US, because there's always a ton of added costs

floxy 1y ago

>Especially because these scams actually work - the reason restaurants give for not just increasing their menu prices is because higher listed prices drive people away. Is there a good way to account for the loss of customers from this practice? I have certainly opted out of restaurants with extra fees.