Why many stores in Japan show prices without tax mainly?

4 comments

1. They have to include the price with tax by law. Usually it’s a smaller don’t than the normal price.

2. They dont, they have to show the price with tax but that is recent (last couple of years maybe?). A lot of them show the price without in bigger text and with in brackets or in smaller text.

3. Fun fact! The amount of “consumption tax” (消費税) listed on receipts isn’t the amount of tax actually paid by the shop to the tax office. The calculation is completely different, and thus the number itself essentially has no meaning. Furthermore, the shop isn’t “holding onto” your money to pay to the tax office – indeed, the amount paid is an entirely separate calculation based on taxable revenue and taxable inventory expenses (課税売上 x 10/110 – 課税仕入 x 10/110), and the tax payment itself currently has potential for exemption based on the business’s earnings.

   Despite the above, stores are forced to include this meaningless tax value on the receipt by law.

   Japanese video (from the “[STOP! INVOICE](https://stopinvoice.org/)” movement) explaining this in detail:

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6biMU4UUVDI&t=1524s

4. Did you find that 1 store where they do not show the price after tax?? I do not even remember the last time I went to a shop without the final price on display.