Every restaurant I've been to with mandatory tips or fees has it written on the bottom of each page. The only shady thing I've seen them do is add the mandatory tip, then give you the bill with an option for an additional tip, hoping people will forget that the tip was already included in the bill.
But generally the tips and taxes is something you know about if you are a US resident. And you might not be unconscious at the time of payment :) And restaurant staff getting paid a decent wage without relying on tips is also something that should get fixed sooner than later.
not really the same. tipping is a custom, but it's not legally required unless the restaurant clearly states that it will be added to the bill.
sales tax is not really a hidden fee. americans usually know the general sales tax for their state. it gets a bit more complicated with specific excise taxes (eg, alcohol), but these rates are publicly available. if you're really concerned, you can always just ask your server or their manager what the after-tax cost of an item on the menu is.
even if you know exactly what medical procedure will be performed, it is still pretty hard to get an exact quote for the cost. it certainly can't be calculated from freely available numbers.
No hidden service fees. Taxing is not so simple in the US. My county has a lower sales tax rate than other counties around me. When I worked as a waiter the municipality had a special tax on alcohol in addition to the county and states alcohol and regular sales taxes.
Isn't this an argument for including taxes final prices, so people don't have to keep track of this? Maybe you're travelling. And it isn't like businesses don't already have to keep track of it for the bill. But instead of requiring businesses to print accurate menus or price labels, the burden is put on the customer to have this detailed knowledge, no matter where they go?
I guess the only two reasons I can think of for this not to happen is so that people have a less intuitive sense/transparency in what taxes the municipality/county/states impose, and so big multi-nationals can show the same "price" in different locations or ad campaigns. None of which ultimately helps the consumer.
To bring it back to the original issue, I guess people don't usually notice because taxes aren't orders of magnitude different, unlike some medical expenses. If you had a beer on holiday, and then found out it was taxed at 200% or even 2000% instead of 20%, you'd be rightfully mad.
Psychologically, if they quote to you the price without taxes, it looks cheaper even if you know about the extra 20% in sales tax and service fees and city tax and and...
Someone showed me the bill from some street corner food vendor in SF. It had like 4 taxes on it over the advertised price.
