On the surface, "all-in cost" represents a rather straightforward concept: the total cost of a transaction. The purchase price. The commission. The closing costs. The whole freakin' shark. But it begs the question: Why does it need the "all-in" part at all?
"All-in" becomes a necessary distinction because the process of discovering the total cost of a transaction can sometimes get extremely murky. Often times, transactions will have a stated cost, but then the full amount you have to pay starts snowballing with a series of fees, taxes and add-ons.
Think about your cell phone bill. It might be advertised as $79 a month, but by the time the bill comes, they want you to pay $118.73. Meanwhile, your bill outlines a litany of confusing charges that the clueless customer service rep is unable or unwilling to explain, and the call center manager seems much more concerned about YOUR attitude and tone of voice and significantly less interested in his company's duplicitous charge-mongering. (This may or may not be based on real events.)
Anyway, the all-in figure eliminates this problem by providing a complete accounting of the cash outlay necessary for a particular transaction. Like how gasoline prices include taxes in the advertised price. The amount you pay is the stated amount times the number of gallons - no additional charges are added on later.
Related or Semi-related Video
Finance: What is sales tax?67 Views
finance a la shmoop. what is sales tax? and what are progressive and regressive
taxes? thumb tacks horse tax sales tax. all right well sales tax is yet another
way the government collects money to spend on things they need to you know [money in a vault]
govern us. so if you buy an acme chihuahua launcher in california while
you pay eight percent sales tax on it. meaning you thought you were only
spending a hundred bucks and it turns out that the launcher well really cost
you 108 dollars, and then you could tack on whatever damage the chihuahua does.
all right well each state has different sales tax charges. some states are high,
some states are low. but sales tax is considered regressive. which sounds like
a bad word and it while kind of is intended to be bad sounding. why? well
because everyone pays the same tax rate whether they're a hard-working plumbing
supply parts vendor making 200 grand a year, or a lazy bridge Tollbooth taker [pipe maker's logo]
who loves keeping their Facebook pages up-to-date. they pay the same rate when
either one of them buys a two-in-one laminating toaster, oven they pay the
same sales tax rate on that oven, and that is called regressive. the thought
process that being well 8% taxes on 200 grand in earnings a year is a whole lot
easier to pay than 8% taxed for someone earning only 20 grand a year. and yes
politicians want to punish the hard-working, saddle them with more
burden so that the less financially beefy, can you know keep their facebook
pages very up to date. well the opposite of regressive is the positive sounding
progressive tax system, where the hard-working plumbing supply parts dude
pays meaningfully more in tax and tax rate than the Tollbooth cash taker with [man frowns behind a desk]
the really up-to-date Facebook pages. of course that cash taker didn't study in
school didn't work hard early or later in life and now lives in a cockroach
infested apartment while the plumbing supply vendor is about to purchase his
second home, so maybe there is something after all to that education thing. like
kids study in school or you like that guy all right. well is
progressive tax good and regressive tax bad? maybe maybe not who knows not for
shmoop to say, all we know is that progressive and regressive taxation both
live in American society and they're the one-two punch that the friendly IRS man
uses to well you know knock you out. [man in suit throws a punch]
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