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Bill to ban hidden fees in California signed into law

oag.ca.gov

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Re: Bill to ban hidden fees in California signed into law

#231
post #106
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taxes are set at a multiple levels (federal, state, district, and city) so it's pretty much impossible to show the post tax price on the label. Hidden fees are a completely different issue.

That only makes sense for an online store that's going to ship you something, in which case asking for the destination ZIP code up front solves that problem. For brick-and-mortar stores, the store can quite easily calculate the final price of an item on its own. Sales taxes do change on occasion, but likely less often than the pricing of the items themselves do, so there's no added burden in having to update them due…

> That only makes sense for an online store that's going to ship you something, in which case asking for the destination ZIP code up front solves that problem

Tax boundaries do not follow zip code boundaries.

To actually find the right tax rate you need the full address, including suite or apartment number because there are cases where a tax boundary runs between different suites at the same street address.

Also this is not just for online stores that ship something. It also applies if you are selling a downloadable good like a game or music, or selling memberships to your site.

Re: Bill to ban hidden fees in California signed into law

#233
post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree. Bait and switch is one symptom of the issue that the price is not what you'll pay. Which to be clear is awful. And that matters if you have to be careful about spending. Also, "everyone knows about them", really? If it's so easy to "know" the local tax rate for various things, why isn't it easy to label them? See the rest of the world, where even young kids can go shopping. If you give them 5 , and the item…

> See the rest of the world, where even young kids can go shopping. If you give them 5 , and the item they want is less than 5, or they want five of something that is 1, they can buy it. In the US even young kids can go shopping too. If you give them $5 + . They can then buy any item whose price tag says $5 or less or 5 of any $1 item.

What's the tax on $5?

Re: Bill to ban hidden fees in California signed into law

#234
post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> See the rest of the world, where even young kids can go shopping. If you give them 5 , and the item they want is less than 5, or they want five of something that is 1, they can buy it. In the US even young kids can go shopping too. If you give them $5 + . They can then buy any item whose price tag says $5 or less or 5 of any $1 item.

What's the tax on $5?

Depends on your location. If you are somewhere with a 5% sales tax for example, it would be $0.25.

If you don't want to have to know the sales tax for your location, I believe the highest sales tax in the US is under 11% so just give the kid $5.55.

Re: Bill to ban hidden fees in California signed into law

#235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was 49c in 2017, then it was 89c in 2020, and now it's 99c in 2023.

Where? I remember buying Arizona with 99c on it well over a decade ago. edit: it's been 99c for 3 decades, since they started business https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-04-12/az-iced-te...

They put 49c labels over the 99c wherever I bought them in California.

I think the 99c price was originally for convenience stores because there were sales of 5 for $2 at Walgreens in 2018.

Re: Bill to ban hidden fees in California signed into law

#236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VAT like the rest of the world for decades.

The "12.5% service charge" you see all over London would beg to differ.

Haven't been there in a while, but I was able to collect VAT refunds a LHR.

Is that on top of VAT?

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