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I don't know. All I know is that the same thing bought from Germany saves me heaps!
EDIT: 19%.
EDIT: 19%.
Prices Across The World
- Thread starter securespark
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China Government subsidizes its small exporters with free postage/delivery of goods to EU
But ours is 20%! I thought I was on to something then!
Perhaps they are just more competitive and can produce things for less.
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No, at least not in my case.
They are importing the Huawei MediaPad X2 from China just like anyone else but for some reason the GEM-701L derivative is much more expensive to buy from Amazon.co.uk than it is from Amazon.de
The GEM-702L and GEM-703L derivatives are more evenly priced on both sides of the English Channel.
They are importing the Huawei MediaPad X2 from China just like anyone else but for some reason the GEM-701L derivative is much more expensive to buy from Amazon.co.uk than it is from Amazon.de
The GEM-702L and GEM-703L derivatives are more evenly priced on both sides of the English Channel.
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Then the only other possibility is 'Rip-off Britain' - the philosophy that sellers (and the EU for that matter) take advantage of us because we're too weak to do anything about it.
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No, s*d off!
L
longdogs
It's confusing, I know that.I guess you don't want to know what our sales tax is here.....
It's confusing, I know that.I guess you don't want to know what our sales tax is here.....
It's not confusing, just irritating because you forget about it until you get to the checkout. Britain may effectively have what is seen as a higher rate, but at least the price you pay is the price tag (in most cases)!
Yes, I can't understand that. Why don't they add the tax on and print it on the price label? If some people qualify for tax-free, must print both prices. That's what they do here, especially online.It's confusing, I know that.I guess you don't want to know what our sales tax is here.....
It's not confusing, just irritating because you forget about it until you get to the checkout. Britain may effectively have what is seen as a higher rate, but at least the price you pay is the price tag (in most cases)!
There are varying reasons but don't ask me if any, or all, of them are correct. The main two I seem to get told are:
It's because different states have different sales tax rates (which they do), so it's complicated for stores to set an exact price including tax. I think large national retailers can say this but smaller local businesses would probably be able to do it. However, as it's not law to show prices with tax, why would they bother?
Others say it's because stores want you to actually see what they would sell the item to you for if it wasn't for the tax - effectively passing the buck for complaints about taxes directly to the government.
I wouldn't be too jealous about the difference in sales tax here to there because, even though tax here appears less, I would say the general cost of living (at least where I am) is comparable to where I was living in the UK.
Also, there are stealth taxes here that we don't have in the UK.
As far as I can tell, the UK Council Tax is similar to the property tax here but houses are charged individually, depending on land, facilities, and even improvements. I was shocked to find that, it you add a concrete path, drive, etc, or even if you have a house with brick, your property taxes can be affected - I imagine these are classed as 'luxury' extras? If you have a 'blacktop' driveway or vinyl siding on your house (bearing in mind that even houses with a brick façade are often still mainly timber framed and clad with vinyl on other sides), there is no increase in property taxes.
There is even public voting on tax hikes for individual schools, which always seem to get passed here, meaning you have to be aware of taxes within certain school zones when purchasing a property. There is also voting on whether to increase local police/sheriff numbers, which I imagine has a bearing on taxes somewhere along the line. (I'm still relatively new here, and learning day by day, so am still not 100% certain of everything we pay for.)
We also have to pay private trash companies to take away our waste - where it is all included in with the Council Tax over there.
It's a case of swings and roundabouts, to me.
I think I'd prefer that. Competition, market forces.
Our councils have no competition.
In some cases the rate varies from county to county within a state, even city to city, because state law allows individual counties and/or incorporated cities to add their own small amount on top of the state tax. Here in Shasta County, for example, we have only three incorporated cities within the county, only one of which - Anderson - imposes its own city sales tax of 0.5%. So buy anything from a store located within Anderson city limits and you pay 8% sales tax; buy it anywhere else in the county and it's the basic 7.5% state rate (assuming it's an item which is taxable, of course; some things are exempt, such as regular groceries).
The one major exception to the "price excludes tax" rule is fuel pumps at gas stations. There the figure you end up with on the display is the amount you pay, including all taxes.
But certainly one needs to take all the various taxes into account to make a fair comparison. That applies between states of the U.S.A. just as much as between the U.S. and the U.K. Some states favor a lower sales tax (or in a couple of cases, no sales tax at all) but might impose higher property taxes or higher state income tax, for example. And just for sales tax, the rules as to what's taxable and what isn't can vary from state to state. I don't know what Ohio does, but here in California goods are taxable (with exceptions, such as food), but services are not. So we pay sales tax if we go and buy a new computer in the store, but we don't pay sales tax on our electricity, internet service, and telephone bills (although there are already enough taxes and fees on the latter anyway!).
Again, there are many variations from state to state, so how Ohio works is likely quite different from here. Since the late 1970's, California has had a law which prohibits annual property tax bills from increasing by more than a fixed percentage (it followed some pretty steep increases during the 1970's which caused concern). But when a property changes hands, that triggers a reassessment of value, so if the previous owner had been there a long time, that can result in a substantial rise in assessed taxes. As you mention with certain improvements (an extension, adding a pool, whatever) that can also trigger a reassessment by the county, so understandably there are many properties around here which have had all sorts of additions carried out over the years without bulding permits. Unpermitted garage conversions to extra living space are very common, for example.
Again, there is a lot of variation from place to place. Here in Redding, for example, the city provides a trash collection service (which includes general garbage, recycling, and garden waste), which costs us just over $23 per month, included in our bill for the other city utilities. But in many unincorporated areas of the county, collection is done by private companies.
The same thing happens for many utilitities, especially water which is typically much more localized than in the U.K., often of necessity due to the sheer scale involved. Again, where I live at the moment we have a municipal supply from the City of Redding. Go a few miles out, and there are many quite small water districts which operate over a relatively small area. A lot of rural properties are on their own wells.
Definitely. And as with quite a few of these "what's best for me financially" questions, it depends upon one's lifestyle, expectations, and many other factors. What's best for one person might not be best for another.
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