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.
Talking point bots will blame Trudeau for this.
This is exactly what the “Taxation is theft” morons don’t understand. They think if the government no longer takes their cut, everybody will just have X amount of money more, and the market won’t just swallow that up without giving you a single thing in return.
companies will 100% of the time do anything even illegal things to make more money.
Removed by mod
“the consumer always loses” good point. and good luck in this dystopian society.
See, trickle down economics works ladies and gents /s
Fuck this is gold.
Well, unless people realise the actual worth of gold… But until then.
How would trickle down work with gold? I’m picturing some kind of golden shower?
sigh
unzips
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.
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
It doesn’t matter how much competition there is of they’re all going to do it anyway.
It does. Competition is literally the only mechanism that drives greedy actors to lower prices or improve their service. Without competition they hoarde.
literally the only mechanism
You forgot about laws.
No I didn’t, price control laws don’t work. Companies will find another way of maximizing profits and screwing you.
“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.”?
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.
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?
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.
GST?
Sales tax, has different acronyms in different countries such as Value Added Tax (VAT), Goods and Services Tax (GST)…
General sales tax we have had in Canada for years. Tax on all goods and services. Used to be 7% but dropped to 5% a number of years ago
Ah gotcha, thanks
If taxes lower, that’s good for both the consumer and seller. Their profit margin doesn’t even change.
Explain your math. It’s absolutely 100% benefit to the seller and 0 benefit to the buyer.
How so?
Last week, a vendor sold an item for $10. With tax, that item costs $12. Let’s pretend a 50% markup (which is reasonable for retail but insanely high for groceries):
- they made $5 profit
- they recouped $5 for their costs
- they collected $2 of tax for the government
Now the government has a GST holiday and there’s no tax. I went to the store and bought the item and it still cost me $12.
- they made $7 profit
- they recouped their usual $5 for their costs
- they collected $0 of tax for the government
The main thing is that their costs for that item didn’t increase and they’re still selling it at its original ”final” price (because they added the tax amount to the sticker price). That tax savings went straight into profits. It was intended for the consumer to save money but the consumer is spending the same amount and the government isn’t getting anything. That money went somewhere.
Edit: that assumes that the claim made in the post is true. It’s definitely not going to be true across the board, but doubtless there’s some fuckery afoot in some stores.
If the controller was $55 yesterday and $62 today there would definitely be shenanigans, but a week ago? It could just be that a sale ended since you last looked.
Anyway, I don’t see $62 Xbox controllers on their site, checking from Nova Scotia. Official controllers are the usual $70-something and there’s PowerA brand for $55.
They are ridiculously expensive to begin with, thus my waiting for a special occasion to spend that much money to get a first-party one. Here it is, probably priced lower than the others because of the ugly colour that I kind of like.
That controller is the same price on Amazon, and Camelcamelcamel shows it went up to that on Dec 6, Friday of last week. It was probably the same with Walmart.
You didn’t happen to take screenshots did you? It’s something that should be reported to the media as well
You didn’t happen to take screenshots did you? It’s something that should be reported to the media as well
I wish I had thought of it. I tried the Honey extension which sometimes shows historical prices, but no luck this time. I couldn’t find any other way to double check the previous prices either.
See if it’s on the Internet Archive (web.archive.org)
I would support Canadian Tire over Walmart.
Do they sell xbox controllers?
No, but Best Buy does. As does Canada Computers, Shoppers Drug Mart, Gamestop, etc. none of which are as bizzarely aggressive about nonsensical pricing schemes.
The time that product spends on the shelves of a Canadian Tire is just a layover before its permanent move to a landfill. They are Coors quality at Heineken prices.
I bought a Husqvarna chainsaw from Canadian tire and it was garbage. I thought I was getting the same one my buddy got (he got his at the local kubota). Turns out Husqvarna just licenses out their name for the right price. It was a garbage chainsaw with orange plastic and the sticker was even upside down.
Reminds me when Alberta reduced the tax on gas, and within a few weeks consumers were paying the same amount again
Ontario did this too. Took a few weeks tops, and now we pay the same as we always have, except none of the money goes to our roads, just to big oil.
Thanks Ford.
His supporters say it’s because Trudeau has too much tax on gas
His supporters don’t ever shut up, despite how uninformed they tend to be.
I laugh because he keeps extending it too and I sure and shit bet he will extend it again so the next government to come in has a poison pill in killing his gas rebate effectively raising the price of gas drastically overnight.
This is 100% intentional by the OPC. Bunch of fuckwits.
Betcha you get reminded again when Canada sweeps the cons in because cArBOn tax and then we pay the same by Monday for everything.
Well the debate should be over whether the taxes cause things to be expensive or it’s corporate greed causing things to be expensive.
Next time you see one of the ubiquitous Poilievre ads claiming it’s taxes that’s making things unaffordable, think about where the problems actually are.
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!”
What about other stores?
What about other stores?
They’re $75+ elsewhere. And I refuse to buy from sketchy “marketplace” sellers on sites like Best Buy where I see reviews saying they’re used but advertised as new, missing components, etc.
Did the price go up in other stores as well when the tax holiday came into effect?
Not buying a new controller until Valve Ibex releases. If one of mine breaks before then, it’ll be replaced by an inexpensive 8bitdo 2C.
