Concept

FU Tax

What it is

FU tax is the extra money a contractor tacks onto your bid because they have decided you are not worth dealing with. The job might reasonably cost $3,600. They bid $7,200. If you take it, they’ll grit their teeth and do the work for a premium that offsets the misery. If you refuse, great — they didn’t want the job anyway.

It’s different from fear tax (fear of the work) and slop tax (cost of their bad business). FU tax is about you. Something about the interaction told them they’d rather not be your contractor.

Why it matters

If multiple bids keep coming in suspiciously high, assume the industry is telling you something. Walk back the last few conversations. Did you question every line item? Did you ask for free estimates on six houses and commit on zero? Did you ping them at 9pm on a Saturday? Did you sound like somebody who doesn’t know what they’re talking about but thinks they do?

Contractors talk. If one general contractor decides you’re a pain, the word spreads through their network fast. Suddenly nobody’s returning calls, and the people who do answer price themselves out. That’s the FU tax at scale.

How it shows up

First, audit yourself. Are you clear, prompt, and directive without being demeaning? Do you treat the scope of work like a contract or like a suggestion? Do you pay on outcomes, on time, without arguing over final walk-throughs?

If the self-audit comes back clean and the bids are still inflated, there’s usually a specific trigger to fix. A conversation that went sideways. A last-minute scope change that burned a crew. A price negotiation that went past “we both live” into “they feel ripped off”. Find the moment and repair it, or accept that you’re starting over in a new circle of contractors.

The cheapest fix is prevention. Be the customer people put first on their list. Likable, but also forceful enough to be annoying to skip. That’s the lazy pm posture. The FU tax disappears once you earn back the seat.

fear tax, slop tax, man day formula, contractors, lazy pm, scope of work