The BBC tries to sum it up:
An American guy delivers the scripted response, which seems to miss some key Americanness. Notably, the #1 criticism is that the stated price of something doesn't include the sales tax:
Cool a .99 cent burger. I have exactly a dollar and I'm hungry.The American response shouldn't be What's so hard about anticipating the tax that will be added?
Walk up to the cashier. ''One .99 burger please. ''
''That'll be $1.05''
It's: We like to keep an eye on the government. We like to be able to see the part that's private enterprise and the part exacted by the government for its own purposes. If you're annoyed to see the extra charged at the checkout, that's good. You should see it and think clearly about whether or not you like it. If you don't get what we're doing with this price/tax distinction, you should ask yourself what other schemes of big government are clouding your vision.
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73 comments:
If only ALL taxes were consumption taxes...
Taxes you don't see - income taxes, real estate taxes, business fees, cost of regulatory compliance, and it goes on. I daresay that $.99 burger could retail for $.25 before taxes.
No sales tax here in Oregon.
"America" doesn't have sales taxes.
States have sales taxes.
Althouse,
Agreed!
That's exactly what I tell my exchange students whenever they make this complaint. Usually I follow it up with asking them to think how they would feel about a 17% VAT if it wasn't hidden in the total price.
Though Sigivald's comment is the real reason sales tax is treated as an add-on. Here in Missouri it even varies city to city.
The Amazon guys started collecting sales taxes last year. That hurt.
Sigivald, amen! Also NH and DE and (I think) one more, though I don't know which it is.
NH is unique in not having sales or income tax.
traditionalguy,
The Amazon guys started collecting sales taxes last year. That hurt.
Not if you live in Oregon, tee-hee!
CWJ,
Here in Missouri it even varies city to city.
In CA too. Sales tax in San Rafael was different from sales tax in unincorporated Marin County, which in turn was different from sales tax in Novato.
As a Brit this is one of the things I love about America.
Along with your commitment to iced beverages and the Bill of Rights.
Think gasoline and other petroleum products.
The Evil Oil Companies invest tens of billions of dollars every year, develop amazing technology, take large risks, pay billions in income taxes and (even without accounting for the income taxes) the government's rate of return on every dollar of sales far exceeds that of the companies and their investors.
Let's hear it for the Evil Oil Companies.
"Not if you live in Oregon, tee-hee!"
Looks like one wants to live in Washington state where there are no income taxes and shop in Oregon where there are no sales taxes.
Tip of the iceberg--think about how many taxes are built into prices. We don't know how much a bar would charge us for a beer if the taxes were taken out, or when we pay rent how much of that goes towards property taxes for the landlord.
While EZ pass in many ways is a great invention--quickly getting through tollbooths!--I think it made most of us more complacent about tolls and toll increases, which you notice much more when you have to wait on annoying lines and fish money out to pay them. (Though to be fair, tolls arguably are more visible than road taxes based on gasoline or general revenues--though even then, tolls often put surplus toll money into general funds. My point is the whole thing is a mess)
Oregon.
Oregon takes nine cents of every dollar of income you earn.
For that you get governments that will drain a huge reservoir of water because a teenage took a whiz in it.
Tee Hee.
Oh, Montana is the fourth. Though Alaska is also mostly sales-tax free.
The year I lived in London, I amused myself by adding up my bill to the 1P and giving exact payment. The very idea was so new.
They do love our habit of going to war to bail out the Europeans. And of maintaining a standing army in Europe for half a century to discourage another one.
Or at least they love it when they are actually worried about or under an attack.
David,
I'm with you on that. Honestly, if your water is full of dead fish, birds, &c. already, one kid's pee is hardly going to contaminate it.
TosaGuy,
I've wondered about that myself. How do the states manage it? To me, living in southern Washington and shopping in Portland seems about ideal, but there has to be a catch.
WV: eefty.
This is why we should get rid of income tax withholding.
It takes so much money to run a government. It will be collected one way or another.
It is best that the ways be as visible as possible, so that we can know what all these benefits are costing us.
I do not like VATs.
A scan of the complaints shows some misunderstanding, but also some valid points.
As for this particular misunderstanding, it's important to remember that Europe is still basically a feudalistic society. You don't question your payments to the Lord in the manor, but you do violently revolt from time to time.
"Looks like one wants to live in Washington state where there are no income taxes and shop in Oregon where there are no sales taxes."
There is a community of Astoria Oregon where people can drive across the river to shop and go back to Washington to live. Double benefit.
My Oregon tax info was out of date, The 9% bracket kicks in at about $9700 and goes to 9.9% for income in excess of $125,000.
Oregon is constitutionally required to have a balanced budget. It balances the budget by getting 36% of its total expenditures in federal aid. Oregon ranks 12th in the country (ranked by percentage) in this category.
Such a deal. Say your prayers (but not at a public function) and thank Uncle Sam.
And don't worry that Uncle is borrowing the money to pay your state expenses. That is someone else's problem.
Tee Hee.
The comeback when the Yanks complain about having to come over to save us from pour foolishness is, "But you always wait to see who is going to win before you jump in!"
Vancouver Washington is a fast growing, thriving town. We went last year for a gymnastics meet for my boys. I actually liked the area a lot.
Smart too. Want to buy a new TV set? Drive across the river to Portland and buy a new TV.
A car might be more difficult though, because if you register it in Washington State, they make you pay taxes. I suppose if you have friends in Oregon you could get Oregon tags for it.
Could save quite a bit of money though.
Michelle Dulak Thomson's reply to Tosa Guy @ 11:53,
LOL.
In Kansas City, we have State Line Road. All of the gas stations are on the Missouri side of the Road. In fact, the liquor department of one of our local Hyvee's is on the Missouri side of the road while the supermarket itself is on the Kansas side.
It's so much better in Europe where the "value added tax" is included in the price. At least ther's no surprise when you pay for your 10 Euro Little Ceasar's Hot 'n Ready or your 10 Euro Footlong.
"The comeback when the Yanks complain about having to come over to save us from pour foolishness is, 'But you always wait to see who is going to win before you jump in!'
Well,that's a purely stupid thing to say.
In December 1941 when we "jumped in" the Wehrmacht had driven into the suburbs of Moscow and had surrounded Leningrad, while German-Italian forces in North Africa were advancing toward the Suez Canal. Just weeks before the attack on Pearl Harbor that brought us into the war the German forces that composed Army Group Center had inflicted one of the most devastating in defeats in the history of military endeavor in the Rzhev-Viazama encirclement battles, which saw upwards of 800,000 Red Army troops killed or captured. In December 1941 German U-boots were sinking ships in the Gulf of Mexico, off the East Seaboard of the United States within sight of American cities, and in the Chesapeake Bay; they had made the entire Atlantic Ocean a graveyard for Allied ships. Meantime, in the Far East and Asia the Japanese had unleashed their centrifugal offensive that would quickly result in the conquest of the entire Western Pacific.
We "jumped in" when it was by no means clear who would win the war, and when, in fact, it seemed likely that the Allies would lose the war.
"We "jumped in" when it was by no means clear who would win the war, and when, in fact, it seemed likely that the Allies would lose the war."
I think the criticism some Brits have towards the Yanks jumping into WWII so late was in part to hide their own guilt over their own delays in standing up to Hitler. From appeasement in 1938 to not committing enough forces in '39 and '40, they may have felt a bit responsible for France and Poland's collapse, and enabling the Germans to take the Continent. Guilt over that may be why they lash out at the Americans for waiting too long.
And in the First World War: We "jumped in" at a time (April 1917) when the French Army had been decimated by losses so severe that its troops were on the brink of mass mutiny, German U-boots were waging (most effectively) unrestricted submarine warfare in the Atlantic, Russia was wracked by revolution and on the verge of withdrawing from the conflict, and the German armies in the West were staging for the 1918 offensives that would bring them, once again, to the outskirts of Paris--where they would be turned back, in part, by American forces hastily thrown into the battle in a near-desperation effort to halt the German advance and the victory they seemed poised to achieve.
It is also worth pointing out that in 1917 the British were also exhausted by the horrific casualties they had suffered, not least at the Somme in 1916 were they lost 20,000 killed and 40,000 wounded on the FIRST DAY of the campaign and over 400,000 casualties by the time the offensive was called off. 1917 was even worse for them, for the French, for Russians, for the Italians, and, yes, for the Germans: 1917 is generally acknowledged as the worst year of the war. In 1917 it seemed that no one would win, that fighting would drag on for years, possibly decades.
Finally: By December 1941 when we formally entered the war we had in fact been fighting an undeclared naval war against the Germans in the Atlantic for over a year, even as were keeping Britain (and the USSR) supplied--and suffering huge losses in shipping to do so. We had also providing aid to China to resist the genocidal war Japan had fighting on the mainland since 1937; in part this aid consisted of embargoing oil exports to Japan, a move that angered the Japanese who were incensed that we had the temerity to refuse to provide them with the oil they needed to wage war and kill millions upon millions of Chinese.
It's telling that they used for their graphic on a story of stupid Americans Americans doing something that is nearly universal (flag waving and face painting at sporting events). It reminds me a bit of my Canadian wife complaining about all the flag waving that Americans do, utterly blind to all the flag waving Canadians do (they do plenty--the red and white Maple Leaf is everywhere).
Factoid concerning that undeclared pre-Pearl Harbor naval war we were fighting in the Atlantic against Germany: After battleship Bismarck sank Hood and disappeared into the mists of the Denmark Strait west of Iceland, it was a U.S. Navy PBY Catalina search plane crewed by U.S. Navy personnel that found the German ship and radioed her position and course to the pursuing British warships that eventually sank her. This was kept secret until after the war because our involvement in the pursuit of the Bismarck was, strictly speaking, a violation of our neutrality.
I don't know if every state does it but when I worked in a restaurant, I thought it odd that they included the tax in the price of alcoholic drinks but not on the food.
I presume someone didn't think it was a good idea to mix alcohol and an immediate, intimate awareness of taxes. Revolution lies that way.
At the time the sales tax was like 7.5% and the liquor tax was 15% or so for a nice 22.5% on the price of a drink.
These arguments are silly on both sides.
The US Gov't had good an valid reasons for going to war in both cases, and especially in the second world war.
Hitler, like Napoleon, lost the war when he turned against the Soviet Union in 1941 without having finished off the Brits first, but this time it would most likely have wound up with the Soviet Union taking over all of Europe, and that is something the US - perhaps excepting the NYT and its crowd - would not allow to happen.
Hence the priority given to "the war in Europe," even though it was the Japanese who attacked Pearl Harbor.
So to speak, WWII was "the opening shots" of "The Cold War."
Hagar said...The comeback when the Yanks complain about having to come over to save us from pour foolishness is, "But you always wait to see who is going to win before you jump in!"
Reminds me of the observation that not only did the United States steal half of Mexico, we stole the half with paved roads.
Brando said...
Tip of the iceberg--think about how many taxes are built into prices.
Most people don't realize how right you are. Over the years, my wife and I have bought three new homes. I went to the construction sites almost daily to check and document the progress. Most construction companies use a series of subcontractors throughout construction. Each of those subcontractors factors in their taxes and the cost of regulatory compliance into their prices. The prime contractor then takes all of those costs, adds on their own profit and regulatory compliance costs, and sells the house. We then have to pay property taxes on the price.
How much of the price of all the things we buy is due to all of the passed-along taxes and regulatory compliance costs? Some economists estimate it runs as high as 40-60%, all all of that gets hidden in the price of everything we buy. We then get to pay sales tax on that.
We need far more tax transparency, not less. That's why I oppose all stealth taxes. Government can raise the tax rates which causes the prices to go up, and then demagogue the businesses for raising their prices.
"Hitler, like Napoleon, lost the war when he turned against the Soviet Union in 1941 without having finished off the Brits first."
Wrong. A myth (albeit an off=repeated one).
The Germans were in position to win the war against the Soviet Union in the summer and autumn of 1942 and even, arguably, in 1943. Which is why, even after the Battle of the Kursk (in which the Soviets suffered catastrophic losses to achieve their victory while the Germans suffered what have since been reckoned as "sustainable losses)Stalin was putting out peace feelers via neutral countries to see if the Germans were interested in a negotiated settlement. The so-called failure to finish off Britain first was of no account: the British were prostrate and did not pose an offensive threat to the Germans.
It's strange reading European discussions of foreign policy which in the years before WW I never considered America as a factor. And Hitler never asked what would happen if the US came in on the Allies side. Over there there's a whole history of hatreds to which we are irrelevant - until we join the ensuing war. Reminds me of the Middle East.
Good one, Tim.
Though it was strong-arm robbery rather than theft.
At that, Mexico was in no position to resist by 1848, and President Polk wanted to take a lot more, almost down to Mexico City, and was furious that his envoy, Nicholas Trist, held to the original demand, about level with El Paso. (And they misjudged where El Paso - actually what is now Ciudad Juarez - was on the globe, so that took some additional negotiation and money to get fixed.)
And there was a party who wanted to take all of Mexico. Think of how interesting United States politics would have become, if that had happened!
Yeah, roughcoat,
that's what Napoleon thought too.
And in that one, the Madison Administration bet on the wrong horse.
These seem less like customs and just peculiarities of our law and governance.
I'm disappointed.
"The Germans were in position to win the war against the Soviet Union in the summer and autumn of 1942 and even, arguably, in 1943. Which is why, even after the Battle of the Kursk (in which the Soviets suffered catastrophic losses to achieve their victory while the Germans suffered what have since been reckoned as "sustainable losses)Stalin was putting out peace feelers via neutral countries to see if the Germans were interested in a negotiated settlement. The so-called failure to finish off Britain first was of no account: the British were prostrate and did not pose an offensive threat to the Germans."
Even considering all that, it doesn't mean Hitler didn't make a big mistake by not finishing off Britain first. Had he been able to do so (which would have been difficult, unless he could have cobbled together enough of a naval force to do an amphibioius invasion), the Americans would have had no launch point to threaten him from the rear, and he would have had access to mideastern oil that the British controlled. Plus, if he occupied Britain itself or cowed them into submission, he would have had access to their manufacturing base. He certainly would have had an easier time against the Germans.
Brando:
Had the Germans achieved success in the South Russia campaign of 1942--and they came within an ace of doing so--the issue of Mideastern oil under British control would have been rendered moot by the seizure of the Caucasus oil fields which almost certainly would have been followed by the seizure of those British-controlled oil fields as well. The key to winning the "war of oil" was not occupying Britain but conquering South Russia to and past the Volga. Britain would have fallen shortly thereafter. As for Britain's manufacture base: in 1941-1942 it was deteriorating due to a lack of material and, most crucially, manpower. Britain faced a manpower crisis from the very beginning of the war. By April 1945 she had virtually run out of young men of military age to continue fighting the war, and as a result her economy was in a parlous state. As was the case with the Soviet Union, not incidentally.
As long as the Brits held out, everybody else also was still in or were hanging back to see who was going to wind up on top.
If the Brits had given up, so would a lot of the Allies, including the Commonwealth nations; they would have gone neutral, and the previously neutral would have rushed to join Hitler's Germany.
Everybody loves a winner.
I am in complete agreement about the utilitarian bathroom stalls. First trip abroad I was thrilled to go to an airport bathroom that looked like it belonged in someone's cozy house or bed and breakfast.
Healthcare: I used to be afraid of Universal Healthcare because I thought it meant forcing everyone to go to County Healthcare and living in LA that is a scary experience.
However, healthcare in Euro-Pacific countries is a FAR different experience - it's nice - really nice in some cases, even county healthcare in better areas in the United States is quite nice. It's wonderful. I've said it before, but my heavily insured family member had to have an emergency multiple bypass in Canada and the facilities and doctors were wonderful. His bill was three lines long. It only cost $50K!!!! It would have cost 400K here. That's crazy.
This was the turning point for me on the subject (about ten years ago). As far as finances, I've never been happy about the amount of money the defense industry sucks out of the country, so it wasn't harder than admitting I was wrong.
I was also young and unfamiliar with business, hospitals in general, and just how insane our system is from a "bad business deal" standpoint. Now that I'm fully aware that, yes, it is within your power to create a different structure and improve a business, a project, a team, or any system, that it is not something that magically happens via divine edict or "the invisible hand of the market" or "human nature", I'm all for creating an inclusive, sane, humane system.
Also as I've gotten older I view things more in terms of a whole *as well as the individual*. My impulse is to solve for a higher level. If you are playing Rubik's cube, you don't stop when one side is organized in all blue, say "I've got my shit together" and dig your heels in - you continue with further temporary disruption until you've solved for the entire cube.
Dear Non-American Reddits: WHO GIVES A RAT'S ASS WHAT YOU THINK? Start guarding your own damn borders and most of us would be happy to stay home.
On the other hand, in the long run, even if that had happened, eventually it may have been more like China, where Chiang Kay-shek always considered the Japanese to be a temporary problem - however much they "won," they would eventually be swallowed up by China - and that Mao and his CCP was the real enemy.
which he turned out to be right about, both on his own behalf and China's.
Here in Texas we have sales taxes but no income tax, and our property tax would be peanuts except for the local school district to which we send no children. On the other hand, our kids seem to turn out better educated (and definitely better parented, regardless of ethnicity and wealth) than the luckless urchins of California.
"...what American customs seem outrageous/pointless to you?"
Reddit.
They should see my receipts from the grocery store.
Three separate sales tax amounts!
One for 'groceries' which is lower
One for regular stuff which is medium
One for 'prepared foods' (ie, fast food) which is highest of all. This apparently includes stuff like butternut squash that the grocery store cut up for you but isn't cooked.
Hitler wanted to invade Britain but was unable to do so. The bombing raids over London failed to do away with the Air Force. They had no shot with the Navy.
And if Hitler allowed retreats at Stalingrad, he likely could've beaten USSR.
Hagar said...
The comeback when the Yanks complain about having to come over to save us from pour foolishness is, "But you always wait to see who is going to win before you jump in!"
Getting us into WW2 took the Japanese. Just because you're in trouble doesn't mean we have to jump in, but would you have rather we sat it out?
"The comeback when the Yanks complain about having to come over to save us from pour foolishness is, "But you always wait to see who is going to win before you jump in!""
Umm no. The side we're on is the side that (generally) wins.
Too bad we thought the USSR was on "our side."
I haven't had a chance to read the list yet. Do they mention peanut butter & root beer as two American items that gross foreigners out?
Especially root beer. PB has spread throughout the world now in one form or another, but, oh, the look on a European's face when you give them their first taste of root beer is just priceless! I'm never cruel about it. I always warn them & tell them that this is an item Americans love & almost everyone else hates, and they're curious to try it. And, it just grosses them out!
Try it on your foreign friends some time!
TosaGuy,
This largely explains the greater Vancouver, WA area.
MDT,
The catch is: shopping (and, quite possibly working) in Portland means a very high risk that the smug will start to rub off on you.
Michael K: Almost. But it's not Astoria... across the river from Astoria (and that fabulous bridge) in WA there's literally nothing but a 2-lane highway. You must be thinking of Vancouver WA which is right across the river from Portland OR.
David: Yeah, but that's the city doing that.
Portland would be just as insipidly run if there was a giant sales tax.
I sometimes find such threads interesting but more often than not they just turn into bitch fests about how Americans aren't exactly like them.
Incidentally, the people making these complaints will then fav/like/up vote a comment about how provincial Americans are.
I always liked root beer, but I have never learned to abide Coca-Cola and popcorn makes me gag.
TosaGuy,
This largely explains the greater Vancouver, WA area.
MDT,
The catch is: shopping (and, quite possibly working) in Portland means a very high risk that the smug will start to rub off on you.
Michael K: Almost. But it's not Astoria... across the river from Astoria (and that fabulous bridge) in WA there's literally nothing but a 2-lane highway. You must be thinking of Vancouver WA which is right across the river from Portland OR.
@RoughCoat Thanks for your history lesson for the _____ that said we wait until we know the outcome before we jump in. You saved me a lot of work!
Hagar,
"popcorn makes me gag."
Try chewing it before swallowing.
@Hagar,
Years ago, I was in a VMS Systems Internals Course at the Digital Equipment Corporation complex near DC, and there were two guys from Norway in the class with me.
It was early July, and in the fields near the parking lot, there was a wild blackberry thicket. Over lunchtime, I picked a bunch of berries & brought them into class to share. I put the berries in front of one of the Norwegian guys, and he shuddered & gasped. He thought that I had placed a bowl of giant black bugs in front of him!
After I explained that they were berries not bugs, and pop a few down, he tasted them & said he liked them. But that first look on his face was priceless!
Just smelling it makes me wheeze.
On the other hand, you made me remember when the other guys had to explain to me that it was OK to spit out the watermelon seeds!
Listen up, assholes. Everything we do is right. If you do it differently, then you're doing it wrong. Everything. Ev-er-y-thing. Now get with the program!
Hey Drill SGT, did I get that tone right? It's been 45 year but that tone and the swagger is the main thing I remember about my drill sergeant.
This piece says more about the folks who generated it than the Evil Other who they're writing about. (Kind of makes me think of all the interesting stuff I've been seeing about France, Muslims, etc. lately.)
Not to mention picking up fried chicken and corn on the cob with your fingers!
But the weirdest things about Americans are that (1) we let people say whatever stupid things they want to say, and we don't issue a cease and desist order if we don't like what they say, like the Brits do; (2) we let people keep and bear weapons to protect themselves against the barbarians that live among us, as they live among you; and (3) we rely primarily on people taking care of themselves, so we only have to look to government where neither the individual nor the voluntary community is able to provide sufficient support.
Or these things used to be true of us before we elected and reelected The One as President. Maybe now we aren't any better than the Eurotrash. I hope that's not so.
I am not a robot.
Exactly.
A VAT is the hinge point of bad government.
To be resisted like it was a tax on tea.
Regards — Cliff
The Russians were well on their way to losing.
"Through the Murmansk Run, the United States supplied the Soviet Union with 15,000 aircraft, 7,000 tanks, 350,000 tons of explosives, and 15,000,000 pairs of boots. American boots made a difference on the Eastern Front, especially during the harsh winters." From http://www.usmm.org/ww2.html Having an uncle who was a WWII merchant mariner has made me well versed in the contribution of the merchant marine to our wartime efforts. Without American material support- the Russians would have ended up sueing for peace or losing outright.
For the record, Washington state has a use tax, so technically if a Washingtonian goes to Oregon, buys something sales tax free, and then returns said purchase to Washington to "use," that citizen is supposed to pay use tax in the amount of what the sales tax would have been in Washington. I'm not sure how many people actually pay it. Unless the tax amount is large it is probably not worth pursuing scofflaws, who probably make up a large percentage of the population.
As to the weirdness:
Tax not included in price: There is another complication in that some buyers are exempt from sales tax, like municipalities. But, yeah, this can be confusing given that some purchases do include the tax in the final price, like movie tickets.
Pledge: Europeans find patriotism to be weird. No wonder they are in the mess they're in. How's the whole mass immigration and Euro working for ya?
Lawyers: They are right about this one. There is too many lawsuits. Then again Europe has too many criminal statutes and regulations that never were good ideas, so it balances out.
Health Care: It never seems to amaze me that Europeans are satisfied having their health care run by corrupt politicians and bureaucrats. They also never seem to realize that the only reason this can work to the extent that it does in Europe is the USA is subsidizing their pharmaceuticals and their military.
Tipping: I went to Amsterdam this year and actually discussed this with some of the locals. The general consensus is that waiters are not very good and switching to a tipping system sounded desirable. So there. My waiters were actually just fine, though they could tell I was an American and likely to tip so there was proper motivation.
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