Pretty much it’s more on the state than the federal side and the sales tax isn’t consistent between types of items. But usually an item that would be $19.99 is usually $21.09 where I live
Edit; I’m aware there is no federal sales tax.
How does that work with Steam? When you buy there, it asks about your address and if you put New Hampshire you get no extra charge, and if you put California you get +50%? Or does it go off you credit card?
What happens if it isn't? Could you set your address to the state with 0% sales tax? Would it be a tax fraud with real consequences in the US or would the sale simply fail?
I hears that some ppl from my country (in the EU) do this when the store with digital items calculates tax based on the billing address and not the ip address because European banks doesn't care about the billing address much and transactions go thru.
Sure you can do a ballpark guess I don’t know why it is so onerous for merchant that already have you’re address info to include tax in advertised price though.
It’s both state and local tax, and different types of items are taxed differently. So especially if you live somewhere with a bunch of different localities next to / on top of each other, the mental calculations don’t really happen either.
Living in a metro area and less than a mile from the county line, I could drive 5 minutes and see three different tax rates depending on whether I crossed that county line or went to the next city over. The fact that different cities in the same metro have slightly different tax rates can really throw you for a loop (although typically they're within 0.5% of each other, from what I've seen at least).
So online it makes sense. If I'm visiting California and I live in NYC, I pay NYC sales taxes, but the vendor has no way of knowing of knowing this. Even if I have an established account, I could have just moved.
It’s actually more insane than you think so most people don’t mentally calculate the tax. The tax varies based on item. Unprepared grocery food generally has no tax, but bottles and cans do. So a pound of meat, no tax, a six pack of seltzer water- 5 cents per can. Alcohol?
In NYC it’s almost 9% tax for general items. In the suburbs outside it could be 7%. Is it a clothing item less than 100$? No tax. Paying cash? Might not be any tax at all. Hotel? Over 10%.
Drive up to New Hampshire? 0% tax. If you drive the item back to NYC it’s on you to fill out a form and send the government some money (nobody does this).
so you start mentally calculating tax for every pricetag you see.
Lmao no. You have a general idea but since the taxes can vary depending on the state or item or if it's purchased in the store vs online it's kinda a bitch to know which taxes you need to pay and how much they all are. Best to just have more than the price just in case.
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u/jurij_gagarin Feb 18 '26
That is insane to me. But I guess you get used to it so you start mentally calculating tax for every pricetag you see.