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 alextroy wrote:
American here. We just expect Sales Tax to be levied on our purchases at checkout. It is simply the way it is. You could call it hiding the final cost. You could also call including taxes in the price hiding the value of the tax.

From a business point of view, it is easier to calculate what profit you are making from a sales if you don't have to deduct the tax from the Price as part of your calculation. You can charge the same price everywhere in the country and let the consumer worry about their local/state sales tax, which vary from 0% in some states to over 10% in some jurisdictions. And that doesn't take into account that some types of sales are exempt in some locations.

It certainly keeps life "interesting" when shopping outside of your common areas of life.

I think you have to acknowledge to outsiders this looks like a barely regulated mess designed purely to make life hard for the average Joe. The general American sentiment of "it's impossible to do" or "it is what it is, why change it", suggesting a lack of want or drive to make life easier for the consumer is somewhat baffling.

 Platuan4th wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 Overread wrote:
I mean the webstore has to do that anyway at the checkout.

Bingo-bongo.

Obfuscating the final price is a choice, not a need.

In the US, you pay tax based on the total of the sale, not per item. Add to that, for some retailers(such as GW) you only pay sales tax if they have a physical location in your state. For example, I pay no sales tax on GW site purchases living in Mississippi because there are no Mississippi based GW locations.

Not totally accurate... in some areas you have different tax rates depending on the item in question. I've had receipts in Cook County where some items were taxed one number and some were taxed more for various stupid reasons that I'll never understand.

Of course then you have Florida's import taxes. Which say that if I physically went to New Hampshire and bought a car there and brought it back to Florida, I'm supposed to pay the local Florida sales tax to the state.

So far, the only people who pay that are those who have been audited, because normally, no one checks.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:

Not totally accurate... in some areas you have different tax rates depending on the item in question. I've had receipts in Cook County where some items were taxed one number and some were taxed more for various stupid reasons that I'll never understand..

Usually either a sin tax (alcohol, tobacco, etc.) or a local/state tax exempting necessities like food. The latter gets more complicated when you introduce things like EBT eligibility, which those taxes sometimes look at.

 kodos wrote:
Impossible to avoid it says the only country where it happens...../s

To be fair (to myself), when I made the "impossible to display" comment I was thinking of RRP actually printed on a physical product in a shop - you know, like how the back cover of a book has the price printed on it. In the UK, this is the price inclusive of VAT. In Canada and the US, it's exclusive of sales taxes because of the impossibility of printing hundreds or thousands of local sales prices (in Canada there's "only" 13, but as I mentioned in the US it varies by city/county). I didn't exactly make that clear and so the conversation went on in the direction of webstore pricing.

Dudeface wrote:

Spoiler:

 alextroy wrote:
American here. We just expect Sales Tax to be levied on our purchases at checkout. It is simply the way it is. You could call it hiding the final cost. You could also call including taxes in the price hiding the value of the tax.

From a business point of view, it is easier to calculate what profit you are making from a sales if you don't have to deduct the tax from the Price as part of your calculation. You can charge the same price everywhere in the country and let the consumer worry about their local/state sales tax, which vary from 0% in some states to over 10% in some jurisdictions. And that doesn't take into account that some types of sales are exempt in some locations.

It certainly keeps life "interesting" when shopping outside of your common areas of life.

I think you have to acknowledge to outsiders this looks like a barely regulated mess designed purely to make life hard for the average Joe. The general American sentiment of "it's impossible to do" or "it is what it is, why change it", suggesting a lack of want or drive to make life easier for the consumer is somewhat baffling.

Funnily, it is a highly-regulated mess designed for each taxing agency to get "their" tax money from the consumer. The USA is very decentralized in many aspects, with taxes being one of them.

And lack of desire is not the issue. It's either a lack of ability to change it (every state is a sovereign government only subject to the Federal Government in limited areas) along with the power if inertia and the public's combined hatred of the current system with reluctance to change.

You want an interesting off-topic discussion, just ask about tipping in the USA.

But this thread is about Games Workshop Price increases. Good ole GW is keeping the profits increasing with regular price increases to keep inflation at bay. You don't have to love it, but it is the price for indulging in a premium hobby IP.