yeah pretty much, its actually kinda strange going to another state buying something that costs $4.99 handing them $6 out of habit and getting $1.01 in change back.
What Del S said. The US sales tax system is a mess The tax varies town to town, county to county and state to state and not to mention type of item to item (no 'flat rate across the board'). If they showed tax on their website, they'd probably use the location data (that would have to be 'opt-in' due to data privacy laws now, defeating the purpose) to identify the buyer's location, calculate the given sales tax on the item(s) as per that location (and different goods will have different sales taxes on them, alcohol, electronics, etc) which would complicate their webstore (the more you have it do, the more chance it will fail because of some unforseen data niggle).
Because the US tax system is a fustercluck. Some places have different tax rates in each city, some in each county, some flat across the state, some states don't have sales tax but do have a brutal income tax, others have no income tax and brutal sales tax. Not to mention that some items may not have sales tax on them at all (mostly food commodities like flour, etc, IIRC). And this doesn't get into Federal-level taxes on things. Idaho's sales tax used to be easy to figure, 5%. Shift the decimal point and halve the result (what's the tip in a restaurant? 3x the tax). Then it went up to 6%. That's *not* easy to figure in your head. And yet all this is still better than paying 20% VAT plus income taxes.
Sure, but tax doesn't change in a location, I get that it's a pain for online stores but for physical stores each Walmart (for example) store knows what their local sales tax is, they could quite easily have a with and without tax price label! I remain unconvinced this is better than a national sales & income tax, but then I don't live somewhere with income tax any more.
Of course, VAT isn't on everything at 20% in the UK, some items have lower rates or none at all - and at least it's not like Bhutan with 50% VAT. But I think the US may never have a simple across the board system thanks to how your structure of government and tax collection can cause every link in a chain to be the roadblock to simplification. This municipality is 4%, the county wants 5% across the board, but the county administration needs votes from that municipality to keep a majority. Overcome that? Those counties have 4%, some have 5% , but those counties have 6%. State wants 5%, but uh oh - those 4% counties vote Party X, and those 6%s vote Party Y. The Governor could lose the election if he loses the 4% counties getting an increase, and might not pick up many votes from the 6%ers getting a cut. Overcome that, federal level, Lousiana wants 10%, NY wants 15%, Kansas wants 6%, Cali wants 50%, Texas wants Cali to die in an earthquake, Florida wants everyone to stop calling them America's Wang. In the UK, all sales tax is HM Treasury controlled, so no devolved or local admins can vary the VAT at all. Some local tax powers exist but they can't cover the big ones: VAT, National Insurance, or Income Tax. Westminster's main valid arguement against it is preventing different rates like the US has. Their real reason is they're the Tories and hate local and regional government with actual powers that they're not in charge of.
What really gets confusing, my state doesn't have sales tax outside a few tourist traps. When I jump across section9's state of Idaho to Washington I am exempted from state sales tax (but not always local) if I want to take the time to fill out a form. Makes a difference when buying several hundred dollars worth of building supplies.
On the subject of tax I recently discovered that non-resident US citizens living permanently abroad and earning their income overseas still have to file federal tax returns and pay federal income tax on that income. That seems crazy to me. I mean, admittedly there's a sizable exemption for like the first $100k you earn, but still, taking a cut from money that never even touched your shores seems a bit rich.
There is something to be said for that, but I'm reasonably sure that it dates to the days of working in one country and sending most of the money back to your home country. I mean, that's what just about every immigrant in the US does, unless they took their entire family with them when they left the old country. And there's also the fact that the US takes a very dim view of abusing Citizens. Yes, violate local law and that's on you (moronic frackwits vandalizing cars in Singapore, of all places... I really hope that stupid was enough to leave a permanent mark on his back!). Have a local revolution blow up all of a sudden (say, Grenada) and there's a really good chance that you will see about 600 Marines coming to escort you home (not to mention the several thousand Sailors acting as taxi drivers). Benefit of the Citizenship. Most of the time, you will never need it. But when you do need it, you'd better believe that it's coming (as long as the local Embassy knows where to find you).
U.S. citizenship is pretty sweet, unlike Cuban citizenship, which can't be removed and actually forbids more than it allows
I know a number of people that have given up US Citizenship or Green Cards due to this fact. They're all people with Canadian or UK citizenship as well though.
That depends what happens to the UK passport after we finish shooting ourselves in the foot repeatedly. At least they'll be blue again I guess (and made in France).
Damn, I keep forgetting about Brexit, what with all the shit happening in my own backyard Last I heard they were thinking of reversing it, did that not get traction?
Nope, our "leader" has tried to call summer recess on parliament a few weeks early because "there's not much left to do", the person in charge of negotiating quit with three months left to exit and the customs issue with ireland is still there because there is no solution to it (despite our fearless and noble leading assuring us that one can be found...)
I regret leaving savings in the UK when I left, it wasn't much in the grand scheme of things but it was painful to watch it shrink in comparison to local prices.
Conversely, i'm glad that a lot of ours were outside the UK xD Sadly, that's the only good thing to have come from it, and in the short (2-10 years) term, probably not worth it.
Yeah, now I'm earning a decent wedge I feel quite well off when I go home to visit :D It also brings me perverse joy when the chuggers ask for a direct debit to cause du jour and I can tell them my bank doesn't do Direct Debit as I don't live in the UK any more :D
Got news from the boss, looks like the backpay will be happening. Now I just gotta wait for the change to actually happen...
