The US doesn’t have a national sales tax, so it depends whether the individual state imposes a tax or not.
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Elkenders@feddit.uk 2 months agoAnyone know the cost in the US including tax? Don’t they leave that off?
K3can@lemmy.radio 2 months ago
kudos@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
It varies state by state, some like Oregon have 0% tax, but most will be around 13% or so iirc.
Frozengyro@lemmy.world 2 months ago
The highest state sales tax is 9.56%, most states are 6-8%. Though some major cities also have a small sales tax as well.
kartoffelsaft@programming.dev 2 months ago
I live in Washington state and I’m pretty certain the sales tax here is 10% (slightly higher than your maximum figure of 9.56%). It’s a pretty well known trick here that you can account for tax just by decimal shifting and adding (ex: 5.29$ without would be 5.29$ + 0.529$ ~= 5.81$ with tax). Is that 9.56% an “in practice” figure that accounts for rounding down? I’m curious where you read it.
Frozengyro@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I found it on This website. WA is listed at 9.38%. I’m guessing your county or city has an additional sales tax.
kudos@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
Thanks for the correction!
breadsmasher@lemmy.world 2 months ago
how does this work if you live close to another state? As in if you live in a state with sales tax but down the road is a state without sales tax- why ever shop in your state?
K3can@lemmy.radio 2 months ago
Convenience. Unless you live right near the border, it’s probably faster/easier to shop in your own state than drive all the way to another.
But if you do live near the border of a state without a sales tax, then it’s pretty common to shop in the neighboring state, especially for larger purchases.
ArmoredThirteen@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
In Washington alcohol is so expensive that any reasonably sized party of alcoholics it’s cheaper to drive across the entire state to buy in Idaho (forgive this disaster of a sentence structure I’m awake like 5hr early because of cats)
MajorHavoc@programming.dev 2 months ago
Mostly the states are quite big, so it’s not worth the trouble. But along various state borders, it distorts the shopping experience in ofd ways.
Like I’ve been towns that are missing common retailers entirely, because everyone drives to the next town over (in another state), to avoid the tax.
We also have a rich history of driving across state lines to purchase stuff that’s illegal in our own state. It’s also illegal to bring it back, but the borders aren’t patrolled, so the only way to get caught is to have a traffic violation while doing it.
Or so I’ve heard. I never break any laws, myself.
Soup@lemmy.world 2 months ago
To put details to other person’s point: Even if you lived pretty close, for a lot of things, the gas cost would probably offset a lot of the savings. For big things for sure it would make some sense but for other things it just wouldn’t make any sense. You’d have to live right on the border and have a town with stores that carry whatever you’re buying also be pretty close.
fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
You still have to waste 30 minutes of your time driving over there. I’m not wasting 30 minutes of my time to save $5
criticon@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
Texas has 8.25% but New Mexico is 5.125%
Sunland Park, NM (which is part of El Paso, TX metro are has an additional city+county tax of 2.125% so the taxes are the same as in Texas (the numbers may be slightly off, but the final tax rate is very close to Texas)
Thunderbird4@lemmy.world 2 months ago
In some cases like that, where you’re in a state that has no sales tax, but near the border of one that does, they’ll actually check ID and charge you sales tax if you’re from the sales tax state.
dutchkimble@lemy.lol 2 months ago
In most countries it’s the sale point which matters, not which state you reside in, for indirect tax. I would assume it’s the same in the US. For example if you’re on holiday in a different state or country, they wouldn’t charge what you’re charged back home.
mortalic@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Vancouver Washington residents drive to PDX for their jobs, to shop, eat dinner etc…
Cloaca@mtgzone.com 2 months ago
No sales tax in NH either.