I'd rather be taxed by higher list prices than by some .0875 surcharge that is inconveniently difficult to calculate in one's head.

If I pick up an item that claims to be $1.99, and plunk it down on the counter with $2, I don't want the cashier to say "That'll be $2.16, please." The label says $1.99 . They could have added the tax when they printed it. If they wanted the label price to be $1.99, they could have made the base price $1.83, and added the tax back in to make it $1.99 on the shelf.

If I go to a concession stand at a ball game, their list prices are all-taxes-included. $2 for a hot dog means if I ask for a hot dog, and pay $2 exactly, no one needs to mess around with change. Why can't other merchants do that?

It's not like consumers can just choose to stop buying things if the sales tax goes up. "What's that? Sales taxes went from 8.75% to 9.15% ? Oh, never mind, then, I'll just stop buying anything from here on out."

Some US states make that illegal, and others require the receipt to still break out how much of the total charge was tax.

Only if the law forbids also showing the proportion of the total cost that is tax.

Fair point, I'd never thought about that. Although, I do suspect that in practice no one would actually do that unless the law mandated that as well.