Sanae Takaichi pledged to suspend an 8% levy on food sales, but retailers say their systems aren’t designed for a tax of zero per cent
  • stuner@lemmy.worldEnglish
    243·
    14 days ago

    I don’t see the problem. Drop the tax and if the companies can’t handle it, they continue to pay it. And once it costs them money they will fix it in 1 week instead of a year.

    • setsubyou@lemmy.worldEnglish
      141·
      14 days ago

      Unfortunately the tax is added at the register and paid by the consumer, so if they just do nothing the companies end up with extra money that they can then just not pass on to the government relatively easily, while consumers still see a tax on their receipts that should not exist.

      • Taldan@lemmy.worldEnglish
        11·
        14 days ago

        Japan, unlike the US, shows final total price on the shelves/product. Customers know what they’ll pay the whole time

        I doubt a business will have many customers if they’re charging significantly more than their competitors due to still charging taxes

        • setsubyou@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          13 days ago

          They display it on the shelf (though some stores still display both before/after tax because the final price is only required since 2021), but registers calculate it separately and the tax appears on receipts.

      • nogooduser@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        14 days ago

        But it’s in the interest of each business to charge as little as possible while maintaining profit.

        So if a competitor of yours is able to not charge tax then you’d better get your act in gear to remain competitive.

        There’s also an incentive to be the first to offer the tax free sales so it should sort itself out over time.

      • stuner@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        13 days ago

        Yes, the tax is paid by the consumers. But, those consumers will probably not be willing to pay more just because the company was too slow in updating their cash registers. So the problem quickly solves itself.

  • Treczoks@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    13 days ago

    So make it 0.1%. Close enough to make people happy, but not zero to appease the f-ed up software.

  • GreenKnight23@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4·
    13 days ago

    this problem is so gloriously Japanese it hurts.

    we want to set sales tax to 0%

    sorry, can’t do it.

    why not?

    software was never designed to have a 0% tax and it will make every cash register turn inside out.

    but we want it to be 0%

    then put in a RFC and we’ll take a look once we have some free cycles