• K3CAN@lemmy.radio
      0·
      2 months ago

      The US doesn’t have a national sales tax, so it depends whether the individual state imposes a tax or not.

    • kudos@lemmy.ml
      0·
      2 months ago

      It varies state by state, some like Oregon have 0% tax, but most will be around 13% or so iirc.

      • breadsmasher@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        2 months ago

        how does this work if you live close to another state? As in if you live in a state with sales tax but down the road is a state without sales tax- why ever shop in your state?

        • Thunderbird4@lemmy.world
          0·
          2 months ago

          In some cases like that, where you’re in a state that has no sales tax, but near the border of one that does, they’ll actually check ID and charge you sales tax if you’re from the sales tax state.

          • dutchkimble@lemy.lol
            0·
            2 months ago

            In most countries it’s the sale point which matters, not which state you reside in, for indirect tax. I would assume it’s the same in the US. For example if you’re on holiday in a different state or country, they wouldn’t charge what you’re charged back home.

            • Thunderbird4@lemmy.world
              0·
              2 months ago

              Yep, but the states with sales tax get tired of getting cheated out of their tax revenue. The specific example where I saw this was a major hardware store chain in Oregon (no sales tax) right near the border of Washington (6.5% sales tax). They asked everyone “Washington or Oregon” at the register and checked ID for anyone who said Oregon.

              Quick search says that Washington considers it a “sales and use” tax, so anything purchased out of state, but intended for use in Washington is supposed to be taxed. Kinda messed up, really.

        • K3CAN@lemmy.radio
          0·
          2 months ago

          Convenience. Unless you live right near the border, it’s probably faster/easier to shop in your own state than drive all the way to another.

          But if you do live near the border of a state without a sales tax, then it’s pretty common to shop in the neighboring state, especially for larger purchases.

          • Ms. ArmoredThirteen@lemmy.ml
            0·
            2 months ago

            In Washington alcohol is so expensive that any reasonably sized party of alcoholics it’s cheaper to drive across the entire state to buy in Idaho (forgive this disaster of a sentence structure I’m awake like 5hr early because of cats)

        • Soup@lemmy.world
          0·
          2 months ago

          To put details to other person’s point: Even if you lived pretty close, for a lot of things, the gas cost would probably offset a lot of the savings. For big things for sure it would make some sense but for other things it just wouldn’t make any sense. You’d have to live right on the border and have a town with stores that carry whatever you’re buying also be pretty close.

        • criticon@lemmy.ca
          0·
          2 months ago

          Texas has 8.25% but New Mexico is 5.125%

          Sunland Park, NM (which is part of El Paso, TX metro are has an additional city+county tax of 2.125% so the taxes are the same as in Texas (the numbers may be slightly off, but the final tax rate is very close to Texas)

        • MajorHavoc@programming.dev
          0·
          2 months ago

          As in if you live in a state with sales tax but down the road is a state without sales tax- why ever shop in your state?

          Mostly the states are quite big, so it’s not worth the trouble. But along various state borders, it distorts the shopping experience in odd ways.

          I’ve been towns that are missing common retailers entirely, because everyone drives to the next town over (in another state), to avoid a tax.

          We also have a rich history of driving across state lines to purchase stuff that’s illegal in our own state. It’s also illegal to bring it back, but the borders aren’t patrolled, so the only way to get caught is to have a traffic violation while doing it.

          Or so I’ve heard. I never break any laws, myself.

      • Frozengyro@lemmy.world
        0·
        2 months ago

        The highest state sales tax is 9.56%, most states are 6-8%. Though some major cities also have a small sales tax as well.

        • kartoffelsaft@programming.dev
          0·
          2 months ago

          I live in Washington state and I’m pretty certain the sales tax here is 10% (slightly higher than your maximum figure of 9.56%). It’s a pretty well known trick here that you can account for tax just by decimal shifting and adding (ex: 5.29$ without would be 5.29$ + 0.529$ ~= 5.81$ with tax). Is that 9.56% an “in practice” figure that accounts for rounding down? I’m curious where you read it.

            • bronzle@lemm.ee
              0·
              2 months ago

              That’s the average local + state sales tax in Washington. State sales tax is 6.5%, local varies from 1.2% - 3.85% (Seattle, for a total of 10.35%)