Not mine (Canada)

I wish the price stickers we see here (USA) gave us the price after tax. That would be wonderful

Unfortunately not in Canada or USA. Tax excluded. Hence the brilliance of this invention!

the USA is a backwards, navel-gazing country. They forget other countries and cultures often have better ways of doing things because they sometimes just forget any other country exists

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Except that we all know about the taxes. There’s no deception. “Plus Tax” isn’t exactly hidden or a secret. It’s not exactly hard to look up what the specific taxes are, either. Who is being surprised? Tourists? We have to change our infrastructure for people who don’t live here? Could you imagine if an American said that about another country? 😶

Canada too. That was a surprise, when something at the dollar store cost me $1.25

This always seems such a stupid justification. I mean there are lots of different countries in Europe, with different amounts of tax and different prices, despite (mostly) having a single currency... You know what companies that trade across Europe do? They price it by country! Wild idea isn't it?

Our sales tax system in the US is unreasonably complicated. Different tax rates for different items that are sold in the same stores, tax rates even vary from different locations in the same town. And the McDonald's burger may be 2 usd in one town, but it's 3 in the next town over which also has a different tax rate, and those rates are subject to change. Really no consistency whatsoever. I just try and calculate 10 percent onto my items to have a vague idea of the final total and not overspend. It's a little nerve-wracking.

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There are over 11,000 different tax districts in the United States. It isn’t just state by state. There can be multiple tax districts within each county. You can have different taxes on opposite sides of the street, ffs. You guys are comparing apples to oranges, here. Also, we aren’t surprised by the taxes. We’ve lived this way our whole lives. No one is shocked that there’s added tax. Would it be easier if we could do this? Sure. But the logistics are a nightmare and we kind of have bigger issues to deal with right now.

Move literally anywhere else in the world, only the USA would do such a daft, illogical thing as to exclude tax from the price and not tell you until you reach the POS

There are different rates of tax elsewhere too, but you never really worry about it because it's included. But they don't put it in in the states because there can be multiple levels of taxation, not just at the state level, but each county or city can add their own tax too. But each store knows what those taxes are and could produce the correct labelling for their store. The trickier bit is marketing info, which isn't usually produced by the store itself. They *could* advertise an item for "just $2", and figure out a base price on a store-by-store basis, but there would be places where they would make less profit than others and they can't have that.

We have this in New Zealand! You have to sign up for a "club card" with the NZ supermarket chain "Pak n Save" (which is free, it's just you registering, and I think it also means you can get club deal discounts or something too) but it means that you can grab one of these scanner things that clicks onto your trolley, and allows you to scan items as you go. Once you reach the POS (cashier or self check out) you just get the terminal to scan or read what's in the click n collect device and it brings up your total and you pay, boom, done. The only downside is that plastic bags are illegal in NZ now so you have to bring your own reusable bags, and Pak n Save is the only supermarket chain in NZ to not sell paper bags for $0.50 each so it's annoying if you forget.

But you have to know the tax rate for it. I've never been in US, I'd have no idea. Is it common knowledge here, for example if you visit family in another state you don't have to ask them about rate? I'm genuinely curious, in EU taxes can be different from country to country, but I've never paid attention to the rate, taxes are included on the sticker anyway.

And in some places, there are different tax rates for different products. Where I live, there is a general rate, a reduced rate for essential food and hygiene products, and another rate for alcohol.