Pricing
The sales-tax trick that justifies a higher asking price
Here's an angle almost no private seller uses, and every buyer quietly understands: when someone buys your item privately, they pay no sales tax. That's a real discount they're already getting — and you can price for it.
The insight
When you bought your item new, you didn't just pay the sticker price — you paid the sticker plus tax. Depending on where you live, that's roughly 5% to 15% on top. But a buyer purchasing from you privately pays none of it. So the honest comparison isn't your price against the retail sticker; it's your price against the retail price with tax included. Framed that way, your discount is bigger than it looks, which means you can ask for a bit more and still be the better deal.
A worked example
Say you paid $1,000 for something, plus 12% tax — $1,120 out the door. A year later a buyer offers $600, calling it "40% off." But measured against what you actually paid, $600 is closer to 46% off. And if that same item still sells new for $1,000, your buyer would pay $1,120 at the store versus $600 from you — plus they skip the tax entirely. You've got room to counter at $650 or $675 and still hand them a genuine saving.
Your discount isn't measured against the sticker. It's measured against the sticker plus the tax your buyer gets to skip.
See the number instantly
The calculator does this math for you: enter the tax rate you paid and it shows what you truly spent, prices the discount against that, and spells out the buyer's tax saving as a line you can use in negotiation.
How to actually say it
You don't want to lecture a buyer on tax policy. Keep it to one line, dropped in when they push on price:
- "It's already below retail, and buying privately means no sales tax for you — so you're saving more than the price tag shows."
- "New with tax this runs about [retail + tax]. At [your price] you're well ahead even before you factor in the tax you're not paying."
It reframes the conversation from "how low will you go" to "look how much you're already saving" — which is exactly where you want a negotiation to sit. Pair it with the tactics in our guide to handling lowball offers.
The honest caveat
You can't recover the tax you paid dollar-for-dollar — it's gone. The point isn't to pretend otherwise; it's to make sure the comparison a buyer is running in their head uses the right retail number. Most buyers anchor to the pre-tax sticker and forget they'd pay more at the register. A gentle reminder puts a few percent back on your side of the table.