Depending on which country you live in, or if you're in the US, which state you're in, you may or may not have to pay sales taxes. In some of these places, it's bundled into the price, but others only add it at the checkout step of the shopping experience. The carrier market makes things easy—most carriers include taxes and fees in the price that you see.
T-Mobile, at least, is one carrier that has been doing that for quite some time. It makes things a lot easier for customers, and it also makes it harder for carriers to sneakily hike prices—again, that makes things simpler for customers. Sadly, it looks like that won't be the case for T-Mobile any longer, with its newly released Experience plans.
T-Mobile's New Experience Plans Are Advertised Without Tax and Fees in the Pricing
T-Mobile recently announced two new plans for its users, which are Experience More and Experience Beyond. Both of these plans are fine when you go through their pricing and the perks that they deliver to you, but there's one notable issue that wasn't immediately obvious, and it is something that is bound to be immensely unpopular. The advertised price for these plans are exclusive of taxes and fees.
| Plan | Monthly Price | Taxes/Fees Included? |
| Experience Beyond | $100 | No |
| Experience More | $85 | No |
| Go5G Next | $100 | Yes |
| Go5G Plus | $90 | Yes |
| Go5G | $75 | Yes |
That's a massive problem, and hopefully, I don't need to point out why (I will anyway). When a company advertises its plan at $85 or $100 a month, like the Experience More and Experience Beyond plans, respectively, you're going to end up paying more than that because the price of the taxes and fees that you are going to pay is not included in that amount.
This change in T-Mobile's pricing system isn't just a rumor either. If you check its website, you'll notice that the pricing for its Experience plans is written as “for 1 phone line + taxes and fees” instead of “plan taxes & fees included” for the Go5G plans. That makes it clear that T-Mobile is moving to a new pricing system, and not the kind that consumers like.
Losing Price Transparency Means That T-Mobile Can Increase Pricing Without Telling You
Some of you might argue that it's not such a big deal, since you're probably going to pay a few dollars above the advertised price to take care of taxes and fees. While that's somewhat true, that's not the biggest problem.
Apart from making budgeting for your cell phone plan harder, it also means that the moment T-Mobile plans to increase one fee or another, they don't even need to tell you. They can simply increase it, leaving these new plans sitting happily at $85 and $100 a month, but you'll suddenly notice that your bill is a lot higher than it used to be. They earn more money that way, and you're none the wiser. That's not very “for the consumer”.
Some of the fees and taxes you need to pay, particularly depending on where you live, include:
- Regulatory Programs and Telco Recovery Fees
- Local Surcharges
- Federal Surcharges
But hey, you can always just roll back to one of the Go5G plans since those have taxes included, so it should make things easier. Well, T-Mobile is allegedly planning to make switching to its older plans a frustrating experience, so that might not go smoothly.
