• @kudos@lemmy.ml
    19•4 days ago

    It varies state by state, some like Oregon have 0% tax, but most will be around 13% 6-8% or so iirc.

    • @Frozengyro@lemmy.world
      4•4 days 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
        2•4 days 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
            3•4 days 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%)

    • @breadsmasher@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4•4 days 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?

      • K3CAN
        17•4 days 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
          3•4 days 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)

      • @MajorHavoc@programming.dev
        3•3 days 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 to 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.

      • @Soup@lemmy.world
        2•4 days 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
        1•4 days 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)

      • @Thunderbird4@lemmy.world
        1•4 days 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
          2•4 days 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.