Canada has implemented a new tax savings from December to February for some things like taxable groceries, crafts, and gaming physical media. I wanted to get a new Xbox controller and found the best price at Walmart for $55 a week ago. The tax holiday starts today and I now see that the $55 has increased to $62 and change, which is about how much tax I should be saving. Great to see this thinly veiled attempt to help Canadians ( /s - win votes) is just going to be extra profit in the corporations’ pockets.

    • Pavel Chichikov@lemm.ee
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      7 days ago

      that’s the thing that pisses me off: the tax often increases the perception of how much people are willing to spend. even if you remove or decrease the tax, the companies just inflate the price to fatten their margins. Rule #1 of capitalism: the consumer always loses.

  • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works
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    7 days ago

    Is that legal? (Am American - idk about Canadian legal strictures around that, but it definitely feels like it’d run afoul of some sort of consumer protection legislation or something like that)

  • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.org
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    8 days ago

    Kroger (grocery store) is doing the same thing this week. They’re doing a 20% off “holiday bonus” discount on a one per-customer basis (20% off your entire order). The catch? Every item in the store is at least 20% more expensive than it was last week.

    • tal@lemmy.today
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      8 days ago

      This has nothing to do with supply-side versus demand-side economics.

      EDIT: Actually, I take that back. It does to the extent that it is aiming to provide an incentive on the demand side, which is the opposite of what you’re complaining about.

    • masterspace@lemmy.ca
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      8 days ago

      That’s not really relevant. A break in sales tax that just targets consumer necessities should be a progressive tax.

      The problem is that a lack of competition in this country means that grocers can raise their prices with no fear of losing customers

      • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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        8 days ago

        It doesn’t matter how much competition there is of they’re all going to do it anyway.

        • masterspace@lemmy.ca
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          8 days ago

          It does. Competition is literally the only mechanism that drives greedy actors to lower prices or improve their service. Without competition they hoarde.

            • masterspace@lemmy.ca
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              7 days ago

              No I didn’t, price control laws don’t work. Companies will find another way of maximizing profits and screwing you.

              • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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                7 days ago

                “only the market can fix this”

                Gestures broadly at the market

                Multiple competitors just results in them all agreeing to raise prices when taxes are lowered.

                Out of curiosity, how do you propose increasing the number of competitors? Or is this a situation of “gee, that would be nice. Oh well, I guess nothing can be done.”?

                • masterspace@lemmy.ca
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                  7 days ago

                  Multiple competitors just results in them all agreeing to raise prices when taxes are lowered.

                  Price signalling happens in situations with low competition, in a healthy, competitive market, if you raises prices someone will undercut you to take your business.

                  Out of curiosity, how do you propose increasing the number of competitors? Or is this a situation of “gee, that would be nice. Oh well, I guess nothing can be done.”?

                  You literally just break up grocery store companies and stop them from merging in the future. The solution is not complicated.

  • OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml
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    8 days ago

    Reminds me when Alberta reduced the tax on gas, and within a few weeks consumers were paying the same amount again

    • Wispy2891@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      In Italy when the government reduced vat on ebooks from 22% to 4% not a single publisher passed the savings to the customer and they even increased the prices

  • Windex007@lemmy.world
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    8 days ago

    Might be betraying my age here, but do you remember when GST was 7%? EXACTLY the same thing happened.

    GST breaks strictly pad the revenues of business AT THE COST of funds to the public purse. Does a fat fucking zero to the wallets of consumers.

  • Kichae@lemmy.ca
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    8 days ago

    Seems like an opportunity to use this in attack PP’s tax-cut rhetoric, and to attack the oft-repeated talking points from business that tax increases will be passed on to consumers.

    Tax cuts are eaten by businesses, so long as the businesses believe that people will continue to buy. Tax increases will also be eaten by businesses, so long as the businesses believe that people will refuse to buy at a higher price. It’s all being taken by or from shareholders.

    It’s a shame no political entities will actually touch this with anything more pointed or useful than “that’s appalling!”

    • Vinny_93@lemmy.world
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      8 days ago

      It has been ruled illegal in the Netherlands only last year but companies still do it and het away with it.

    • eezeebee@lemmy.caOP
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      8 days ago

      It was so hastily-implemented that I think it’s either an oversight or by design.

    • deranger@sh.itjust.works
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      8 days ago

      It is in the US.

      The FTC’s Guides Against Deceptive Pricing generally require that a seller offer an item at a price for a reasonable, substantial period of time in good faith, and in the regular course of business, before advertising that price as the former or regular price (16 C.F.R. § 233.1). The FTC considers it deceptive to offer an item for sale at a higher price for a short period of time in order to support a claim that an item is discounted when the price is then lowered. This practice is prohibited.

      Additionally, most states have consumer protection statutes that prohibit sellers from making false or misleading statements of fact concerning the reasons for, existence of, or amount of a price reduction (for example, Cal. Civ. Code § 1770(a)(13)). Several states also expressly regulate the length of time an item must be offered at a regular price and amount of time it is on sale (for more information, see Practice Notes, Promotional Pricing: Specific State Laws and “Up To” Discounting Law and Practice: Promotional Pricing: State-by-State Requirements).

      From here

      • adarza@lemmy.ca
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        8 days ago

        tell that to amazon and every other retailer that jacks prices up the week or so before a ‘sale’

        • deranger@sh.itjust.works
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          8 days ago

          For Amazon, I use camelcamelcamel to see price history. Personally I’ve not seen price increases just for holiday sales but I also don’t buy a lot of stuff on these sorts of days, I just set a price alert and wait for the email.

          • Bronzebeard@lemm.ee
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            8 days ago

            Sites like these are why amazon has been using more coupons at check out instead of straight discounts. Messes with the price tracking

            • deranger@sh.itjust.works
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              8 days ago

              How does that help Amazon if on the price tracker it appears $20, but with the coupon it’s actually $10?

              If I’m using a price tracker and see it for $20 pre-coupon but another site has it for $15, wouldn’t that just drive my business to the other site?

              It seems like with using coupons it’s just artificially inflating the price on whatever trackers, and that seems like it would be bad for sales to me.

      • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
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        8 days ago

        The price hike in Canada’s instance, wouldn’t violate US law.

        They aren’t advertising a “sale”. You just aren’t paying taxes on what you buy, and it isn’t wal mart doing it, it’s the government. Wal mart is just choosing to screw over the buyers and the government all in one go.

      • shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip
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        8 days ago

        In that case, they won’t lower it in February than it’s not illegal because they’re not offering it for a higher price for a short amount of time.

  • vortic@lemmy.world
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    8 days ago

    I don’t say any of this to say that I think what Walmart is doing here is ethical, onky to say that it is logical from their standpoint if they assume there won’t be any blowback.

    Companies charge what they think they can get for a product. The tax is part of the price. If they think an item will sell for $5.26 including tax, it is reasonable for them to think it will still sell for $5.26 if the item isn’t taxed.

    That isn’t to say this is nice on their part, but the current system doesn’t incentivise them to be nice. It incentivises profit.

    It does seem like they took the easy route to gain more profit. It is likely that, in the a absence of tax, their profit would be maximized by a price that is somewhere between the old pre-tax price and the old post-tax price.

    • eezeebee@lemmy.caOP
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      8 days ago

      Yeah, I shouldn’t have been surprised. This is normal psychopathic behaviour for a corporation.

  • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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    7 days ago

    I think the answer here is to buy that somewhere other than WalMart. Are there any stores nearby that didn’t increase their price on the controller?

  • SkyNTP@lemmy.ml
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    8 days ago

    All prices are set based on what consumers are willing to pay.

    The only way prices ever go down is by exercising a decision not to buy something or to go somewhere for an item.

    It will not come from the government, unless the government mandates a specific rate.

    • eezeebee@lemmy.caOP
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      8 days ago

      It’s not all bad - now instead of saving $7 I will be saving the whole $55 since I won’t buy it!