The Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday proposed a rule to ban any hidden and bogus junk fees, which can mask the total cost of concert tickets, hotel rooms and utility bills.
President Joe Biden has made the removal of these fees a priority of his administration. The Democrat’s effort has led to a legislative push and a spate of initiatives aimed at helping consumers. Administration officials have said these additional costs can inflate prices and waste people’s time.
“The proposed rule would prohibit corporations from running up the bills with hidden and bogus fees, requiring honest pricing and spurring firms to compete on honesty rather than deception,” FTC Chair Lina Kahn said on a call with reporters. “Violators will be subject to civil penalties and be required to pay back Americans that they tricked.”
The FTC proposal is being coupled with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announcing that it will block large banks from charging junk fees to provide basic customer services.
Stores change posted prices without tax more often than the taxes change, and they can handle the taxes in their point of sales, so they can easily include the taxes in the posted price by using the point of sale price.
Apologists: “it would be too hard for stores to post the prices!”
Meanwhile, stores be like:
(In case it’s not obvious, that’s an electronic price tag.)
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They don’t have to calculate at checkout, and even if companies were forced to it would be within a few cents. Still better than needing to estimate ahead of time to know if you have enough tmfor tax.
I live in the US and several businesses have tax included in their listed prices. It really is not that hard.
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Bars frequently sell drinks at a price that includes tax, and people frequently purchase more than one.
Most concession stands sell food with tax included in the price per item.
It is called sales tax because it is from items being sold, not whether they are sold together or individually.