Minnesota bans "junk fees"

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

https://minnesotareformer.com/2024/05/20/governor-signs-junk-fee-ban-into-law/

This means that businesses must now advertise the actual price, rather than a lower price and tacking on a ton of fees afterwards. Notorious in restaurants now as well as obviously tickets. Based!

DFL making great work of this in their voter outreach, this is seen on Facebook.

[Progressive Pessimist]

That's actually some brilliant marketing.

The Biden administration needs to follow suit if they continue getting similar reforms done at the federal level.

[MasterJedi]

We should also start requiring businesses to list the after tax price too.

[Del Tachi]

We should also start requiring businesses to list the after tax price too.

The U.S. has tens of thousands of tax districts.  Showing the price exclusive of taxes keeps taxes transparent and allows consumers to make direct comparisons between the prices of products across different regions.

[MasterJedi]

We should also start requiring businesses to list the after tax price too.

The U.S. has tens of thousands of tax districts.  Showing the price exclusive of taxes keeps taxes transparent and allows consumers to make direct comparisons between the prices of products across different regions.

This would be for in person sales. Obviously wouldn’t work online.

[Del Tachi]

We should also start requiring businesses to list the after tax price too.

The U.S. has tens of thousands of tax districts.  Showing the price exclusive of taxes keeps taxes transparent and allows consumers to make direct comparisons between the prices of products across different regions.

This would be for in person sales. Obviously wouldn’t work online.

It even breaks down at a local level. It would be hard to make a direct price comparison between doing your grocery shopping in one county vs another if they applied different local taxes, for example.   

[TheReckoning]

Great work!

[Xing]

We should also start requiring businesses to list the after tax price too.

The U.S. has tens of thousands of tax districts.  Showing the price exclusive of taxes keeps taxes transparent and allows consumers to make direct comparisons between the prices of products across different regions.

Not a bad argument for showing both prices instead of just one.

[John Dule]

We should also start requiring businesses to list the after tax price too.

The U.S. has tens of thousands of tax districts.  Showing the price exclusive of taxes keeps taxes transparent and allows consumers to make direct comparisons between the prices of products across different regions.

This would be for in person sales. Obviously wouldn’t work online.

It even breaks down at a local level. It would be hard to make a direct price comparison between doing your grocery shopping in one county vs another if they applied different local taxes, for example.   

I'm not understanding this. Why would someone care about doing a "direct price comparison" between two prices they're not going to actually pay? The final price (including tax) is what matters to consumers.

[Del Tachi]

We should also start requiring businesses to list the after tax price too.

The U.S. has tens of thousands of tax districts.  Showing the price exclusive of taxes keeps taxes transparent and allows consumers to make direct comparisons between the prices of products across different regions.

This would be for in person sales. Obviously wouldn’t work online.

It even breaks down at a local level. It would be hard to make a direct price comparison between doing your grocery shopping in one county vs another if they applied different local taxes, for example.   

I'm not understanding this. Why would someone care about doing a "direct price comparison" between two prices they're not going to actually pay? The final price (including tax) is what matters to consumers.

Because by displaying the base price and itemizing taxes separately, consumers are more informed about the components of the final price that they pay.  It's a more straightforward and transparent pricing system; it ensures producers cannot artificially lower their advertised retail prices by selectively misapplying or excluding certain taxes and gives consumers full transparency into the taxes they are paying (which should be important to a lolbertarian.)   

[John Dule]

We should also start requiring businesses to list the after tax price too.

The U.S. has tens of thousands of tax districts.  Showing the price exclusive of taxes keeps taxes transparent and allows consumers to make direct comparisons between the prices of products across different regions.

This would be for in person sales. Obviously wouldn’t work online.

It even breaks down at a local level. It would be hard to make a direct price comparison between doing your grocery shopping in one county vs another if they applied different local taxes, for example.   

I'm not understanding this. Why would someone care about doing a "direct price comparison" between two prices they're not going to actually pay? The final price (including tax) is what matters to consumers.

Because by displaying the base price and itemizing taxes separately, consumers are more informed about the components of the final price that they pay.  It's a more straightforward and transparent pricing system; it ensures producers cannot artificially lower their advertised retail prices by selectively misapplying or excluding certain taxes and gives consumers full transparency into the taxes they are paying (which should be important to a lolbertarian.)   

As a consumer, why should I care if the price I'm paying is due to tax or not? What matters to me above all is how much money is leaving my wallet. Where that money goes is a very, very distant second.

[politicallefty]

We should also start requiring businesses to list the after tax price too.

The U.S. has tens of thousands of tax districts.  Showing the price exclusive of taxes keeps taxes transparent and allows consumers to make direct comparisons between the prices of products across different regions.

This would be for in person sales. Obviously wouldn’t work online.

It even breaks down at a local level. It would be hard to make a direct price comparison between doing your grocery shopping in one county vs another if they applied different local taxes, for example.

Most states don't tax groceries though, so that part doesn't even apply to most of the country. Your state apparently is among those that tax groceries and at the highest rate in the country (7%).

Online comparison seems even easier. Businesses need to know sales tax rates in order to collect the appropriate amount. There's no reason why they can't have a way to input your ZIP code to show the final price with sales tax. When you buy something subject to sales tax, you input your address anyway to see the final price, but that's at checkout and not itemized.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

We should also start requiring businesses to list the after tax price too.

Another problem is telecommunication companies trying to disguise fees as taxes.