<story><title>Cable companies, automakers try to derail FTC, FCC quest to kill misleading fees</title><url>https://www.techdirt.com/2024/02/05/cable-companies-automakers-try-to-derail-ftc-fcc-quest-to-kill-misleading-fees/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mgkimsal</author><text>With so many local taxing jurisdiction, it&amp;#x27;s essentially impossible.  I bought something from my office, and if it&amp;#x27;s shipped to my office, I pay one tax.  Shipped to my home (in a neighboring county), it&amp;#x27;s a different (lower) tax.&lt;p&gt;I did some POS work for a company years back and tried to integrate &amp;#x27;taxes&amp;#x27;.  I was replacing an earlier system, and I used modern tax SaaS (avalara, IIRC).  The client was telling me all my taxes were wrong, but... digging in... Avalara was &lt;i&gt;correct&lt;/i&gt;, and the client had been calculating and collecting taxes wrong for... about 15 years.  I had no way to try to figure out how they were doing it &amp;#x27;wrong&amp;#x27; to match how they&amp;#x27;d been doing it.  This had to do with &amp;#x27;service&amp;#x2F;labor&amp;#x27; income vs &amp;#x27;product&amp;#x27; vs &amp;#x27;chemicals&amp;#x27; they used.  Different counties in the same state had different rates (which changed over different months&amp;#x2F;years historically).  Tribal lands had different rules still.&lt;p&gt;The biggest lesson I took from that was... if you do something (tax calculations), do it consistently and uniformly.  Should they have been audited, it may have looked a bit better that they were at least consistent in their tax issues, instead of looking like they were explicitly trying to somehow intentionally scam customers or the govt.</text></item><item><author>jimt1234</author><text>I once read a comment here on HN from someone in Australia, saying that, according to local laws, advertised prices must match the final price, including taxes, fees, etc. So, if the price says &amp;quot;$100&amp;quot;, you&amp;#x27;re gonna pay $100. That blew my mind. I&amp;#x27;ve lived in the US my whole life; I never really thought a straight-forward pricing system was possible. Seriously.&lt;p&gt;Then I remember getting kinda depressed, because the pricing system here (in the US) isn&amp;#x27;t going to change anytime soon. I recalled an article about Ticketmaster, which basically said that their system of showing the final price only at checkout, after a bunch of screens&amp;#x2F;clicks, is hugely profitable for them, almost everyone still purchases the tickets, regardless of the fees, because the process is so painful and there&amp;#x27;s really no alternative. Back to reality. Advertised ticket price = $100. Final price = $165. Ugh.</text></item><item><author>jacobyoder</author><text>When my wife first moved here to the US (from overseas), we&amp;#x27;d pass by some used car places and they had cars with big &amp;quot;$1999&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;$2799&amp;quot; in the windows.  &amp;quot;Wow... they&amp;#x27;ve got great prices!&amp;quot; she said.  I burst her bubble with &amp;quot;that&amp;#x27;s just &amp;#x27;downpayment&amp;#x27;&amp;quot;.  Eventually we went up close to one to show her &amp;quot;yep, the car is actually $11k, but they put $1999 in giant numbers to get you to pull in.&lt;p&gt;She&amp;#x27;s not &lt;i&gt;dumb&lt;/i&gt; by any means, but I don&amp;#x27;t think this was legal in the UK where she came from.  That was a bit of an eye-opener for me.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ryandrake</author><text>You could solve this in two ways:&lt;p&gt;1. Allow companies to advertise a price exclusive of tax (but inclusive of fees)&lt;p&gt;2. Require companies to list a single total price where the final price the customer pays is less than or equal to. So their advertised price would be inclusive of the highest tax rate the customer would be required to pay.&lt;p&gt;The oft-cited tax calculation &amp;quot;problem&amp;quot; is just an excuse.</text></comment>
<story><title>Cable companies, automakers try to derail FTC, FCC quest to kill misleading fees</title><url>https://www.techdirt.com/2024/02/05/cable-companies-automakers-try-to-derail-ftc-fcc-quest-to-kill-misleading-fees/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mgkimsal</author><text>With so many local taxing jurisdiction, it&amp;#x27;s essentially impossible.  I bought something from my office, and if it&amp;#x27;s shipped to my office, I pay one tax.  Shipped to my home (in a neighboring county), it&amp;#x27;s a different (lower) tax.&lt;p&gt;I did some POS work for a company years back and tried to integrate &amp;#x27;taxes&amp;#x27;.  I was replacing an earlier system, and I used modern tax SaaS (avalara, IIRC).  The client was telling me all my taxes were wrong, but... digging in... Avalara was &lt;i&gt;correct&lt;/i&gt;, and the client had been calculating and collecting taxes wrong for... about 15 years.  I had no way to try to figure out how they were doing it &amp;#x27;wrong&amp;#x27; to match how they&amp;#x27;d been doing it.  This had to do with &amp;#x27;service&amp;#x2F;labor&amp;#x27; income vs &amp;#x27;product&amp;#x27; vs &amp;#x27;chemicals&amp;#x27; they used.  Different counties in the same state had different rates (which changed over different months&amp;#x2F;years historically).  Tribal lands had different rules still.&lt;p&gt;The biggest lesson I took from that was... if you do something (tax calculations), do it consistently and uniformly.  Should they have been audited, it may have looked a bit better that they were at least consistent in their tax issues, instead of looking like they were explicitly trying to somehow intentionally scam customers or the govt.</text></item><item><author>jimt1234</author><text>I once read a comment here on HN from someone in Australia, saying that, according to local laws, advertised prices must match the final price, including taxes, fees, etc. So, if the price says &amp;quot;$100&amp;quot;, you&amp;#x27;re gonna pay $100. That blew my mind. I&amp;#x27;ve lived in the US my whole life; I never really thought a straight-forward pricing system was possible. Seriously.&lt;p&gt;Then I remember getting kinda depressed, because the pricing system here (in the US) isn&amp;#x27;t going to change anytime soon. I recalled an article about Ticketmaster, which basically said that their system of showing the final price only at checkout, after a bunch of screens&amp;#x2F;clicks, is hugely profitable for them, almost everyone still purchases the tickets, regardless of the fees, because the process is so painful and there&amp;#x27;s really no alternative. Back to reality. Advertised ticket price = $100. Final price = $165. Ugh.</text></item><item><author>jacobyoder</author><text>When my wife first moved here to the US (from overseas), we&amp;#x27;d pass by some used car places and they had cars with big &amp;quot;$1999&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;$2799&amp;quot; in the windows.  &amp;quot;Wow... they&amp;#x27;ve got great prices!&amp;quot; she said.  I burst her bubble with &amp;quot;that&amp;#x27;s just &amp;#x27;downpayment&amp;#x27;&amp;quot;.  Eventually we went up close to one to show her &amp;quot;yep, the car is actually $11k, but they put $1999 in giant numbers to get you to pull in.&lt;p&gt;She&amp;#x27;s not &lt;i&gt;dumb&lt;/i&gt; by any means, but I don&amp;#x27;t think this was legal in the UK where she came from.  That was a bit of an eye-opener for me.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>user_7832</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t think that&amp;#x27;s true. India for example has a ton of different taxes and until a few years ago the differences between states and different products were significant. Yet that didn&amp;#x27;t make it impossible, because everyone was already used to it.</text></comment>