the ultimate corporate tax | a meal with visa

I recently, or less recently now, had a meal at Jasmine Deli. Jasmine is an age old institution with a younger brother around the corner (Jasmine 21, I believe).

Whenever I find a business owner willing to talk disparagingly about credit card fees, I'm all ears. (It should be said here that Jo at Plan B Coffee Shop considers credit card fees a fully legit 'cost of doing business.') So there are plenty who consider it absolutely fine.

I consider it an administrative tax on a massive percentage of all transactions globally. Most credit card fees for small businesses, for most transactions, depending on how often they "batch out" run in the neighborhood of 2-3% not including a basic per transaction fee of 25 cents or more.

This is why so many businesses have signage re: "NO Credit Card purchases for under $5."

Because at $5, they're hemoraging, directly from some likely marginal profit at the corner store or mom and pop coffee shop, about 30 cents or more of that $5 - that's a solid 6%. Not too far from what local American municipalities and states charge citizens on cash transactions.

Except all this money is going directly to VISA. How much money is that? From The International Herald Tribune April 2, it becomes clear just how much cash is flowing through this taxation system, "One euro in every nine is spent using a Visa card and the company has set itself a target that by 2015 one euro in every five euros will be spend using one of its cards."

That's a lot of tax for a service that, if applied correctly, could pretty much run itself. It's not a lot unlike state and municipal taxes going exclusively to the bureaucracy that collects the tax.

In response, a group of ex-Visa employees have responded with Noca. " The headline reads, "NOCA Targets Transaction Fees with New Online Payment System. Now, if we can get retailers hooked up via the WWW, maybe we can start getting past these modern parasitical relationships.

But, back to Luke at Jasmine. He confirmed he pays some steep fees, but more importantly he makes this point. "Just use cash!" When you put $20 on your debt card, you'll be paying at least that much back as a customer - and your retailer isn't even getting close to all the money.