Your Guide to Visiting America

[Septentrionalis]

Sales tax in Tn where I live is like 9-10% so it's not that hard to figure out roughly what the sum will be before you get to the checkout. I worked as a cashier and most of the people already had roughly the proper amount of money ready. Paying with exact change isn't really a big thing unless you're an old lady either, so the most you'll have to wait for is for someone to pull out a couple bills. Personally, I think they should show the pre-tax and post-tax amount on the price sticker.

Precisely. One should be able to learn to cope with that situation. I think that an actual confusion, in the practical sense, should dissipate for any foreigner fairly quickly. After that, a person may call it confusing if they continue to see the practice as alien to them, even if they are not really confused anymore.

That idea about pre-tax and post-tax prices is brilliant. The only thing I really missed from back home were unit prices on food items (even the packaged ones) that have been mandatory here for a very long time. I refer to prices per weight or volume. Those are very useful and provide the consumer with an understanding of what things should cost no matter how misleading packaging practices may be. I am not sure what the situation is nowadays in US, having been out of circulation living in Yurp for so long.

[Akar]

Foreigners like in this thread.

[Pontifex Maximus]

Alright, line up the lot of you. Come on, line up. Give me your sales TAX, come on, give it up.

[Akar]

Oi, you got a loisence for that sales tax mate?

[Pontifex Maximus]

Oi guvnah oim just ere for a bit o fun, eres me loicense to go 'ome

[Akar]

oi m8 but u got a loiscense for the loisense for the loiscensnse?

[King Athelstan]

Alright, line up the lot of you. Come on, line up. Give me your sales TAX, come on, give it up.

Tax causes tea parties, are you sure about this

[Akar]

It's a slippery slope.

[Cookiegod]

Europeans being confused by simple sales tax add-ons contribute to my belief that Europeans have no idea what they're talking about when they refer to their "free healthcare."

"I pay a 45% tax rate, but my healthcare is free!"

You're all ignoring the tax add ons, change my mind.

For fun once I calculated my tax consequence to the Free Euro Healthcare TM model over 20 years and came up with a figure of ~$750,000 in tax consequence over 20 years for just standard care and followups. Muh free healthcare

By that logic, companies should be able to remove the other taxes they have to pay on their wares as well. The property leased costs money, and part of that money gets taxed as well. Cashiers cost money, and part of that money goes into tax as well. So why not exclude that money from the price shown as well?

People buy stuff based on the amount it costs to them. Sales tax on the other hand is an operating cost on the business. Free market dictates that you'll try to charge as much money as possible for maximum profit - the fact that you profit a bit less is of no relevance to the customer. The total sales price not being included is simply due to goading the customers to spend more money. Not because of some lofty goal of: "Hey, let's make people understand how much the sales tax costs them."

If you're not misleading because you're not implying that the price shown is the total price, well. Why not go further? Why not show a price tag only consisting of the profit margin the shop expects on the ware and all production, transport, purchase, operating etc. costs to be added on top of it at the counter?

Second part, healthcare: Look at the huge amount of cash spent on healthcare in the US and tell me how you saved money on it. --> You didn't.

[Pontifex Maximus]

I firmly stand behind my claim that all healthcare promotes socialism, hospitals should be illegal

[Cookiegod]

Don't run from my argument. This isn't the mudpit! In the gilded halls of the Thema Devia there's space for a reasoned political discourse.

[Septentrionalis]

Free market dictates that you'll try to charge as much money as possible for maximum profit - the fact that you profit a bit less is of no relevance to the customer.

While something along those lines is usually the outcome, I do not think that free market dictates a thing like that. There are complex motives and values even in a free market, although they are almost never the primary governing principle.

The total sales price not being included is simply due to goading the customers to spend more money. Not because of some lofty goal of: "Hey, let's make people understand how much the sales tax costs them."

If you make an assumption like that, you are effectively suggesting that companies decide whether tax is shown instead of the government. That is not the case anywhere that I know of.

[Diamat]

As a former Communist, I still cringe when Americans use the term socialism while having no idea what it actually means to various groups, especially to Communists. Americans see socialism in every corner but can't define it consistently. Some of them say "equality is socialism." Others say "the government controlling us is socialism." Yet to a real Marxist-Leninist old-school Communist, neither of those are socialism. And old school Communists would despise what some today call "cultural Marxists" (what an oxymoron). They would define today's SJWs and ideological trends among youth as a form of idealism and individualism grounded in the contradictions of bourgeois society. That is, they would consider it capitalist ideology.

[Septentrionalis]

Alright, line up the lot of you. Come on, line up. Give me your sales TAX, come on, give it up.

Gladly! Sales tax in Finland depends on the quality and purpose of the product or service bought.

0%: Medical services, education services, insurance, fees paid to performing artists. Please note that there are private medical and education service providers in addition to public ones.

10%: Books, newspaper and magazine subscriptions, medicinal drugs, physical excercise services (think gym entrance fees or yoga classes, but do not participate in yoga classes), personal transportation services (think getting a cab), entrance fees to cultural and entertainment venues, works of art (excluding resale of works of arts).

14%: Food items, animal feed, restaurant and catering services.

24 %: Everything else.

Things such as alcohol, tobacco, and food items of low nutritional value (candy, sodas, the like) have additional penalty tax that are not considered a part of the sales tax. They are specifically meant to make the product more expensive and to offset the additional burden to the rest of the tax payers that finance our public health services.

[Pontifex Maximus]

Don't run from my argument. This isn't the mudpit! In the gilded halls of the Thema Devia there's space for a reasoned political discourse.

I'm so sick of this debate though, as if because I don't like the European model I must love the American model. I hate both equally, trust and believe.

As a former Communist, I still cringe when Americans use the term socialism while having no idea what it actually means to various groups, especially to Communists. Americans see socialism in every corner but can't define it consistently. Some of them say "equality is socialism." Others say "the government controlling us is socialism." Yet to a real Marxist-Leninist old-school Communist, neither of those are socialism. And old school Communists would despise what some today call "cultural Marxists" (what an oxymoron). They would define today's SJWs and ideological trends among youth as a form of idealism and individualism grounded in the contradictions of bourgeois society. That is, they would consider it capitalist ideology.

Communists get everything wrong, even American definitions of socialism.

Things such as alcohol, tobacco, and food items of low nutritional value (candy, sodas, the like) have additional penalty tax that are not considered a part of the sales tax. They are specifically meant to make the product more expensive and to offset the additional burden to the rest of the tax payers that finance our public health services.

PURE AUTHORITARIAN COMMUNISM! Rebellions have been kindled for less in America.

[Aexodus]

UK sales tax was introduced in WW2 to reduce wastage and never repealed. The standard rate is 20%, which can be reduced to 5%, or 0%.

[Pontifex Maximus]

UK sales tax was introduced in WW2 to reduce wastage and never repealed. The standard rate is 20%, which can be reduced to 5%, or 0%.

Once they get it, they never let go. Income tax was unconstitutional in the US until it was decided we need it to fund social security. Now social security payments aren't even livable which means they won't even cover the electric bill in 2060 when I'm depending on it because socialism is a joooooke.

[Cookiegod]

I'm so sick of this debate though, as if because I don't like the European model I must love the American model. I hate both equally, trust and believe.

The European model doesn't exist though. Every country has its own. Denmark has had public healthcare since the medieval era in one form or another. But it doesn't cover much more than the necessities. If you want more, then you can have private insurance for those. Germany has you choose between public and private insurance altogether. I was/am insured privately there.
UK has the NHS system with strengths and issues, etc. etc.

The only thing we all share, including the otherwise extremely liberal Switzerland, is that public involvement in healthcare is good. There's efficiency in economics of scale. The stupid part can often be found in the privatised parts. E.g. Transport of the sick/emergency ambulances. In France you will have several of them competing, but because you can't have a barter system where every second counts, the result is simply, that each of them get a day in the week. Result: Unnecessary bloat, noticeable less experienced staff.

Taxes: The most popular German example is the champagne tax. Introduced in the run up to WWI to finance the build up of the Kriegsmarine, it has survived 2 world wars and 4 very different types of government.

[Diamat]

If the US wants even the semblance of a national health care system (I still think subsidies to the states are the best course of action), then funding would be of the utmost concern. If it wants such a healthcare system or an effective subsidy system, the US should put a considerable sin tax on unhealthy food such as snacks, soft drinks, candy, and fast food. The problem is that the US is one of the unhealthiest countries in the world, meaning that American citizens would require more healthcare resources per capita than Swedes. Thus simply raising taxes wouldn't be a good idea, since it would force healthy people to subsidize the bad habits of unhealthy people. Let's tax the out of McDonalds.

[Cookiegod]

Yeah but isn't that quite ironically the part covered by the government? I faintly remember Nixon or Reagan having pushed a law through for one specific diabetes treatment or something

Anyway, 64% of all health spending in the US is paid by the socialist government. 18% of GDP goes into health spending. And yet 10-20% (ignoring the current layoffs and loss of insurances due to the recession) are without health insurance.

The governments in Denmark and the US spend practically the same amount of money relative to gdp (less than 1%).