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California AG and state senators introduce bill to ban hidden fees

oag.ca.gov

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Re: California AG and state senators introduce bill to ban hidden fees

#281

Post by forrestthewoods »

twblalock wrote: post #68
forrestthewoods wrote: post #10

I wish they would treat sales tax as a hidden fee. Just show the actual damn price up front plzkthx.

If we had a standard sales tax, sure. But when sales taxes vary by city and county, like they do in California, it's very painful to do that -- and that's only 1 of the 50 states!

> it's very painful to do that

Sure it's hard. Do I care? Not in even the slightest. I have not one picogram of care.

The calculation is made at the point of sale. They can list a final price and work backwards. Does that make it harder for a business to set the price? Yeah maybe. I still don't care.

It's a clearly solvable problem. It'd provide a superior consumer experience. It'd be slightly inconvenient for businesses. SHIP IT.

Re: California AG and state senators introduce bill to ban hidden fees

#282

Post by eastbound »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #212
slg wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is also a case where consumers say they want one thing, but their behavior is a different matter. For example, pretty much everyone says they prefer the full price to be shown up front in search result pages. But, as someone who is privy to a ton of A/B testing in this area, the opposite nearly always results in higher conversion, where there is a lower up-front price and fees are only tacked on during checkout…

I don't think fraud is a good analogy - the whole point with fraud is that you are getting something different after you agreed to it, when it's too late to back out. Going back to the airline example, most people say they hate getting nickel and dimed on things like paying to pick a seat up front or paying even for the first carry-on, but they will still pick one flight over another if the base rate is $5 cheaper. A…

> but they will still pick one flight over another if the base rate is $5 cheaper

The other flight also tricks you with in-flight purchase of air, so, might as well choose the lowest base price.

Re: California AG and state senators introduce bill to ban hidden fees

#283

Post by pessimizer »

phist_mcgee wrote: post #277
wpietri wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all. A great example is health codes. 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…

Great analogy, never thought of it this way.

It's not an analogy, it's actually happening. I think you mean "example."

Re: California AG and state senators introduce bill to ban hidden fees

#284

Post by jmugan »

gwbas1c wrote: post #276

> other than taxes and fees imposed by a government IMO, taxes need to be part of the advertised price. Part of the reason we tolerate hidden fees in the US is because we're used to paying more than the sticker price for something because it doesn't include taxes (and tip.) If I lived in CA, I'd contact my reps and ask them to redo the bill to also include taxes and tips. It's not right to eliminate some kinds of hid…

I agree but worry that could derail this good legislation.

Re: California AG and state senators introduce bill to ban hidden fees

#285

Post by robertlagrant »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #244
meltedcapacitor wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes sense: at the high end of the market, patrons need to be able to identify and get the most expensive option to impress their date/mates, and understandably restaurants want to be helpful. (See "Veblen goods".)

Never seen the impressing part... usually if you want to eat cheap, you go somewhere cheap, if you want something more expensive, you're prepared to pay more, but you don't want to be surprised after. So, noone who goes to a place like this cares if one soup is $12 and the other $14 and then pick the cheaper one... but if you have a $79 bottle of wine on the menu and a $7900 bottle of wine on the menu, it's in the in…

"Sir, the wine is clearly marked as 0.0000000472c per cubic mile. How did you not see this coming?"

Re: California AG and state senators introduce bill to ban hidden fees

#286

Post by qu4z-2 »

bradleyjg wrote: post #143
mattficke wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airlines are an interesting an example because the FAA required them to advertise all-inclusive pricing a decade ago. The extras they charge for now (checked bags, bigger seats, nonstop flights) really are optional —- I routinely pack light and pass on any upgrades. People who need to check a bag can include that in their price comparison. For hotels, it’s fine to charge extra for access to the pool or whatever as lo…

One interesting wrinkle is sitting next to another person on your ticket. By all rights it should be optional but person after person books the no assigned seat option and then is outraged that they are not seated next to their companions.

My expectation for a no-assigned-seat group ticket is that we should be seated together but not anywhere particular (front/back, window/aisle, whatever).

Re: California AG and state senators introduce bill to ban hidden fees

#287

Post by shagie »

skaushik92 wrote: post #274
shagie wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have the resources to declare residency in Texas and pay sales taxes from Oregon you are able to avoid paying most taxes. I am saying that most people don't have the resources to play tax arbitrage. Those that do are the ones that should likely be paying the most taxes. Going to a system were sales taxes go to 0 based on where you buy it (online in Oregon) doesn't mean that states will abandon the sales tax bu…

Interesting point; yeah, I agree that a significant population does not have the ability to move around. If I understand you correctly, you’re saying that in a world where all sales tax is zero, the wealthier population will be able to arbitrage/optimize over the remaining tax types they pay more easily than those less wealthy, resulting in a larger wealth gap. This argument could also apply inductively in a sense ov…

Yep - we're on the same page now.

Also consider things like Nevada which has no income tax and one of the higher combined sales tax because they are able to extract money from out of state people as tourists there.

California also shows up in the "rather high combined sales tax" in part because local governments arne't able to reliably use property tax (yes, its another regressive tax - and California is a special case there) to raise local funds. ( https://www.lao.ca.gov/reports/2015/finance/sales-tax/unders... ).

There are some progressiveish aspects to sales tax as it selects which items are taxable. In Minnesota (for example), clothing is not taxed. On the other hand, from Wisconsin, its sometimes cheaper to shop online and have Ikea delivered rather than go to Chicago and pay local taxes there ( https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/State_Sa... )

In many cases, sales taxes try to tax the more "luxury" items though it gets complicated (food eaten in the place of purchase gets taxed while food that is not hot and to be consumed elsewhere is not taxed).

This comes from experience working in the tax part of point of sales software a few years ago. The "it gets complicated" gets really complicated... and even worse when you then start looking at it from the fiscal policy side for local governments.

Re: California AG and state senators introduce bill to ban hidden fees

#288

Post by tzs »

tehranian wrote: post #144

>>> The legislation — the first bill of its type across the state — would prohibit advertising a price for a good or service that does not include all required charges other than taxes and fees imposed by a government. >>> “Californians are sick and tired of dishonest fees being tacked on to seemingly everything,” said state Senator Bill Dodd. “It’s an underhanded trick... Why do government-imposed fees get a special…

> Note: In Europe, the advertised price always includes the related taxes

How does that work for prices in broadcast ads that reach multiple countries? VAT can vary from country to country so which country's VAT rate do you use in the ad?

Re: California AG and state senators introduce bill to ban hidden fees

#289

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

> The legislation — the first bill of its type across the state — would prohibit advertising a price for a good or service that does not include all required charges other than taxes and fees imposed by a government.

I wish it included the taxes and government fees also. The whole hidden fee culture seems to be enabled by us all being so accustomed to paying extra at checkout.

Re: California AG and state senators introduce bill to ban hidden fees

#290

Post by el_don_almighty »

Does this law include taxes like Social Security?

Many people think they only pay 7.5% and the company pays the other 7.5% but this is wrong. The employee pays the whole 15%, they just don't see it come out of their check.

Does that count as a "hidden fee?" What about VAT taxes?

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