Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Bill to ban hidden fees in California signed into law

oag.ca.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 480 posts

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

#81

Post by b112 »

Svip wrote: post #19

Whilst encouraging, I also feel like US policies are part of the problem, besides allowing it for so long. The fact that sales tax in the US doesn't just depend on state, but can be down to the house number on a street, means it's difficult to present automated listing of all fees online. There are reasons why sales taxes are not included in price tags in shops. Among them, that the tax could be different if you went…

Taxes aren't remotely related to this, are understood by everyone, and every place I ask is quite happy to disclose local taxes.

After all, the company is only collecting them for governments.

Yet nothing prevents companies from showing all fees the company charges. All of them.

This is what the new law addressees.

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

#82

Post by PeterStuer »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #50

Comments that are bringing up taxes (which are totally exempted by this bill anyway) and tips (with one small caveat) are completely missing the point. You can have a debate about how to display those items on a price list, but everyone knows about them and they are expected. The whole point of this bill is to prevent bait-and-switch, where loads of unknown or variable fees are tacked on after the price is initially…

Traveling to the US is for most Europeans a mightmare on this point. We are used to have a price that includes the taxes, services, delivery, wathever, you pay this much for this good ot service, and not an anachronistic 'tip' incantation for which you have to be tuned in to the latest local vibes so as not to unintentionaly run afoul of some obfuscated social rules, or you have to wip out your phone to google tax rates and calculate these on in step 2.

'Every one knows' is a very US centric view, which even I doubt is true given the degree of illiteracy and math deficiency in the overall population.

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

#83

Post by guappa »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #66
Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understand this argument at all. Your shops have computers with label printers, right? At the Co-op supermarket in our little UK town (population 3000) they’ve even just replaced the shelf price tickets with tiny colour displays.

It's not really a problem in brick and mortar stores. It's a problem in online stores because you can't necessarily give someone the right price with taxes until you have their address. And this problem is harder than some might think. I knew someone who lived on a street that was a "dividing line" for this stuff: same zip code, same city, but one side had a 9% sales tax, the other side had around 7%. We tested a lot…

How do they know how much tax to charge you when you buy?

In that same way they know what price to show you.

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

#84

Post by jen20 »

smt88 wrote: post #48
sfmike wrote: post #15

We could learn from for example Japan where there is no cents and all fees included so 5000 Yen is 5000 yen no tip no tax no fees no cents it's really cortisol reducing.

Including taxes in the sticker price is bad. It allows the government to quietly increase taxes without people noticing. Sales taxes are in general regressive and harm lower-income people the most, so they should be visible and attributable to government.

So break them out on the receipt.

I have no desire to learn what the tax rate is for X in any state at all (since I cannot vote to change it in any case), what I am interested in day-to-day is the all-in price of whatever I’m about to buy.

Eliminating junk fees (looking at you, AT&T) is a net win for reducing cognitive load. The idea I should have to learn the tax rates of the multiple jurisdictions I may or may not be in just to serve your political views is fucking asinine.

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

#85

Post by megablast »

xmprt wrote: post #31
adasdasdas wrote: post #7

I don't know why we can't just force everyone to show post tax/fees price upfront. It's complete bullshit that every restaurant bill comes with 3 different taxes.

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.

Sure, yet every other country in the world does it. So impossible.

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

#86

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan »

goplayoutside wrote: post #70

Will this apply to all those miserable 5% "economic adjustment" surcharges that restaurants started charging a couple of years ago? I stopped going to restaurants that charge those fees, but it's become so widespread that it can be a challenge to find any that don't at this point.

From my understanding of an earlier draft of this bill: If they're mandatory, yes - they'll be outlawed.

They may be able to keep them if they allow customers a way to opt-out, but this is less clear.

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

#87

Post by SSchick »

seer wrote: post #77
guitarbill wrote: post #58

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…

I really like how tips are done in most of europe, where the tip is included by default in the restaurant price. So now your choices are - add additional tip if you’re really satisfied with your service, or retract the default tip if you’ve been wronged in some way. Just by default you don’t have to think about it, and it shows up in all the places if should - government included.

I grew up in Germany and never heard about 'retracting' the default tip. The only way I can imagine this is severe complaining to the point where they take something off the bill which I've only ever seen once or twice, where as in the US this is a frequent thing.

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

#88

Post by briffle »

guitarbill wrote: post #58
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #50

Comments that are bringing up taxes (which are totally exempted by this bill anyway) and tips (with one small caveat) are completely missing the point. You can have a debate about how to display those items on a price list, but everyone knows about them and they are expected. The whole point of this bill is to prevent bait-and-switch, where loads of unknown or variable fees are tacked on after the price is initially…

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…

You can do that in Oregon as well. No sales tax

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

#89

Post by musicale »

inemesitaffia wrote: post #52
nodesocket wrote: post #43

Laws like this aren't going to make services and products any cheaper. They'll just shift around and hide the fees into the core price. Sure, that's better I suppose, but end of the day still costs the same amount. Not convinced at all this is a area policy makers should be focusing on.

You don't want to drive to a resort, hotel or store with a headline figure of say $300 and end up finding out additional fees double that to $600

Resort/amenity fees in a nutshell - just a way for them to advertise a rate that is lower than the actual rate.

Unfortunately the law seems to ignore hotel taxes/government fees, which are often substantial.

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

#90

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

shiroiuma wrote: post #9

They should ban tipping too.

Everyone always says this, and it's basically never going to happen, at least in the US.

Tons of places have tried to ban tipping and just include the service in the cost of the item. They nearly always revert because the best workers leave to make more money at a tipping joint.

Post reply on HN