California AG and state senators introduce bill to ban hidden fees

    Smart politics, but bad economics.

    Ban baggage fees = higher ticket prices
    Ban resort fees = higher room prices
    Ban credit card late fees = higher interest rates

    These proposals just make some consumers pay more to cover the costs of other consumers.

There is a point hidden in there, in that banning optional fees makes the price go up for people who refuse the option.

But when the fee is mandatory, hiding it is basically pure evil.

Much more developed argument than my pure evil comment: https://www.slowboring.com/p/junk-fees

It's sad that we have to look to government to solve basic stuff like this. I'd rather not regulate everything to death but the alternative is annoying shit like this. Like I could try to go to another dog boarding place, but there just aren't that many of them and they probably do the same thing. I bet they're all owned by the same private equity firm anyway.

Here in Germany every bill, every receipt will contain that information. (I mean, obviously, it’s legally required.)

Different sellers do this differently in terms of clarity, though I think this has little to do with any kind of price signal to the buyer or sticking it to the government or something like that.

My feeling is that the more likely it is that the customer is a company (which do not have to pay VAT) the more clearly do sellers communicate the VAT part of the price.

In fact, if you are not selling to consumers you can ditch that VAT altogether when you communicate your prices. Alternatively (when talking about online retailers) they may provide a toggle to switch between being a business customers or a private customer, e.g. here the toggle top left next to the Conrad logo: https://www.conrad.de

Serving good, safe food is something pretty much every food business wants to do at the outset. Nobody opens a restaurant thinking, "Let's see who we can get sick!" But imagine your hamburger stand is next to a guy who's willing to cut corners. Use the older meat. Buy from the dodgier supplier. Maybe spend less labor time cleaning. Suddenly his prices are lower and you're losing business. Other restaurants nearby are too. You're faced with a choice: do you cut corners, or go out of business?

So if you talk with restaurateurs, you'll find that most of them are in favor of health codes and health inspections, because although they can be a pain, they're keeping competitors on a level playing field. They like food safety laws for suppliers even though they make prices higher, because they don't want to have to worry about giving their customers unsafe or suspicious food.