I need to know if I am stupid or crazy or what here…

As far as I am aware, non-prepared food items no longer have sales tax or a snack tax like they did when I was a kid. The only taxes I know I would be paying for a canned soda would be the CRV/California Redemption Tax, which is a flat $0.10 per aluminum can ($0.15 for glass bottle).

If the can of NOS is priced at $1.98, I expect the total price to be $2.08. However, the price ends up coming out to $2.21. Where the fucking hell is the other goddam $0.13 coming from? Are they charging me the fucking bag fee even when I don’t get bags?

I know it is classified as a tax and not just the price being mislabeled because when I pay for it using foodstamps, I am only actually charged $1.98 period since the system automatically removes taxes from the payment (I only see this reflected by the SNAP balance, not the POS system at the store, BTW). It’s still disconcerting to clearly see a discrepancy in what is attempting to be charged, tho.

Is there some other tax I am not aware of or something? Everywhere I encounter this happening does not have itemized receipts (which I find pretty scummy), so I can’t just find out by looking at that.

  • litchralee@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    11·
    3 days ago

    Overstating the tax and then being charged less, that’s going to be less jarring to consumers than the opposite situation, where people are charged more than what it says on the can haha. They emboss cans with the worst-case tax rate because the tops are produced separately from the body of the can, so they genuinely don’t know what size of can it will be part of.

    But I get it: taxes are hard, since even the supposed simplicity of a “flat tax” rate still requires exemptions and exceptions everywhere. Otherwise, people will get away with paying less tax than they ought, or more tax than is reasonably fair, or that the purpose of the tax is wholly defeated.

    Taxation systems: simple to administer, easy to understand, fair. Pick at most two. Anyone who says they’ve come up with a system that achieves all three perfectly is a liar or doesn’t understand how taxes work.