¹ it was so that the effective tax rate remained the same when Quebec stopped taxing the federal tax, which was pretty annoying for software.

You already have this in some sense on gas pumps: the price advertised has taxes included so you are not always playing guess-the-final-total with your money. Just pass a law that requires fair advertising of the actual amount the purchaser will pay, taxes etc. included. If there are special circumstances that might make certain people exempt from a tax -- SNAP is sales-tax free, for instance -- there are several ways to handle that but it's clearer when phrased as a discount rather than as an evasion of a tax.

However, the reason I think stores do this is: If store A is selling candy bars for $1 (+ $0.05 tax at register) and store B is selling candy bars for $1.05. Most people would buy their candy from store A because their prices are lower.

The situation where it comes up is the idea of an American VAT. Because it applies the tax before the store even sees the good, the tax ends up baked into the price. And people like Grover Norquist have argued against a VAT specifically because of that: "The VAT is embedded inside the price of a good (as opposed to the U.S., where sales tax is transparent and on top of the price). As such, people forget they pay it, and European governments have found it too easy to raise the tax repeatedly over time."

https://humanevents.com/2010/04/23/dont-give-obama-a-vat/

If the business did not collect taxes then you the customer owe that to the state still and are suppose to self report that and pay the owed taxed annually

This is the same as Tax withholding from a paycheck, you owe the taxes but your employer is collecting and forwarding them to the government on your behalf, the big difference here is the purchases are not tracked by individual tax payer

Interesting. But do people actually do this in practice? I wonder if states report what percentage of sales tax comes from businesses vs individuals.

Before 2018 or 2019 unless a business had a physical presence in the state it was outsize the reach of that states laws on taxation, as the Federal government has the exclusive domain of regulating interstate transactions under the US Constitution.

However in 2018 or 2019 the Supreme court has ruled that a business shipping into a state provides enough "nexus" for a business to fall under state regulations on sales tax collection. All but one state now require any business shipping a product into the state with a total sales volume of more than $600 for that state must collect sales tax, one state says any sales at all you must collect.

So the "loop hole" of buying from out of state to avoid state sales taxes no longer exist as almost all businesses now need to collect all taxes for all taxing jurisdictions in the US of which there are around 10,000 different tax jurisdictions as many area's have city and/or county level taxes in addition to the state taxes making this is very complex issue

Companies like Amazon and Walmart in the past have advocated for some kind of National Standardization of Sale Taxes but that largely has gone no where as many states make up the majority of their revenue from 2 places, Property Taxes and Sales Taxes where the majority of Income Taxes go to the Federal Government

>>I wonder if states report what percentage of sales tax comes from businesses vs individuals.

Most states do have detailed reports of where sales taxes come from, in my state over 70% of sales taxes come from the sale of Automobiles as an example

One exception is in advertised gasoline prices, which usually include all the taxes, including sales tax and special gasoline taxes.

I doubt if most price tags last more than a month at clothing stores, maybe a year at grocery/other large chain stores. Department stores and trendy fashion stores have too many sales and don't keep the same items in stock year round anyways.

Almost every other country in the world works fine without bait'n'switching their citizens at every single transaction.

I get that it's weird if you aren't used to it, but it really isn't the big deal people (that don't have to even deal with it) make it out to be.

"Just" anything in America is as OP pointed out an absolute nightmare left-vs-right debacle.

The "left" wants to have inclusive pricing for, as you point out, convenience and sanity while politicians on the "right" want to have taxes appended afterwards so that you are smacked in the face with how much the government is wasting your money every time you buy anything.

Every business should be requried to adversite, print, and clearly mark the amount of the tansaction is going to taxation

Hiding taxation in the purchase price allows government to increase those tax rights with out facing the same amount of public back lash as they do when the taxation is calculated secretly from the transaction or advertised rate

This is why when come taxes increase their gas takes the hate and vitriol is directed at the "evil gas companies" increasing the rates when in reality it was a increase in gas taxation that cause the per gallon price to increase

One of the primary reasons I oppose a VAT style tax in the US is the vert nature of non-transparent taxation. People need to know exactly how much money the government is taken from them in any given transaction

People should have to actively hand over money to the government, see the money in their account, and then see it removed for the exact purpose of government taxation

This is the only way to hold government to account for their massive overspending, which today is abstracted away to the point that people believe their tax refund check is the "government paying me money" instead of what is really is, the government taking to much money from you and then giving you back what they over seized

Any abstraction in government funding is a negative for government accountability

If people had to physcially spend a payment larger than their mortgage every month to the government they would quickly start to ask "Why I am paying so much" and "what am i actually getting for this money"

Instead the government slyly takes the money before people even realize they had it, sure they get a pay stub but it is not "real money" that was ever in their physical possession, most people do not even look at their Gross income only the amount physically put into their bank account.

This subtle difference is factored into how government has structured taxation to ensure very limited accountability

That's exactly what happens in Europe, the receipt tells you exactly how much you paid for each of tax and goods.

It's actually illegal there to set prices such that they will generally round in the business's favor? Talk about micromanaging…

If they change the tax rates do you have to update your prices so that they round evenly again?

A fairer policy might be "round random" (e.g. 1.23 rounds to 1.20 40% of the time and to 1.25 60% of the time, since .23 is 60% of the way from .20 to .25). That would be harder to game by manipulating the prices. However, you would need to certify that the rounding was actually random; the result wouldn't be obviously correct for any particular transaction, only in aggregate.

I don't see why this would be different. Most likely there would be a law that covers it. (I believe there already is regarding sales tax)

either you're way too optimistic, or i'm way too pessimistic, but lemme tell you, we do not see eye-to-eye on that point.

Concretely, $1.20 with 7% tax is $1.284, do you believe merchants would charge you $1.29?

That said, do I think that someone, somewhere, has/does/will out of malice abuse this specific oft-ignored dark corner of the marketplace, for personal gain? Yeah, I absolutely think that:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salami_slicing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVSlE28hOgI

3-4 cents isn't a lot. Unless it's added up by all of the people shopping in those places over the course of a year. The incentive to cheat the system is there, therefore the system will 100% be cheated. That's The American Way, in my experience.

This kind of fraud would be so easy to detect I just can't see it occurring on any large scale. The problem would be with small "mom and pop" businesses that could do it for some time without being noticed.

And even if they do always round up: It won't be that much - up to 4 cents per transaction. 125 transactions would only cost you $5 per month - and besides, businesses have actual costs to using cash. No pennies means less time handing out and counting change and less change to get from the bank. Not to mention the savings at the government level.

- Prices are rounded down to the nearest multiple of 5 cents for sales ending in: 1¢ & 2¢ (rounded to 0¢); and 6¢ & 7¢ (rounded to 5¢).

- Prices are rounded up to the nearest multiple of 5 cents for sales ending in: 3¢ & 4¢ (round to 5¢); and 8¢ & 9¢ (round to 10¢).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cash_rounding#Rounding_with_0....

I share GP's assumption, assuming that businesses would re-price based on the final cost. There is a financial incentive to get the transaction to round up, and financial incentives are usually pretty motivating.

(Given the max incentive is 5 cents per transaction, I might guess a focus on one-off transactions like a bag of chips, vs. the complexity of attempting to get the average grocery bill to end in the right #!)

Would be interesting to see if the after-tax prices of potential single items (chips, water, pop) changed with this rule. Anything that was 99 cents, now that HST is 13%, comes to 111.8 cents, rounds to 110 cents. Bumping that to 100 cents even, rounds to 113, rounds up to 115. Profit of 5 cents on '99c/1$' item for 5% difference. Hard margins to give up!

Everybody who lived the transition to the Euro knows that this is not what will happen. Prices will be always rounded up.

I don't understand the big fuss over rounding in the discussion of eliminating the penny. Rounding happens. We already round sales tax up or down to the nearest penny--this would just round up or down to the nearest nickel.

But while we are on the subject, I think we should eliminate nickels and quarters at the same time as the penny and just round to the nearest dime. (Let's put the 50 cent piece of of its misery while we are at it too--just dollars and dimes). Rounding to the nearest ten cents is plenty specific enough given the accumulated inflation/devaluation of currency over the years and you basically get to simply knock off one decimal digit of precision for each transaction which makes things more straightforward. Also, US dimes are small and lightweight, making them easy to carry relative to other coins.

You forgot quarters, which are perhaps the most common coin. How about we eliminate pennies, nickles, dimes, half-dollars, and dollar bills, and just use quarters and dollars?

Making change would require an average of 4.5 dimes, with a maximum of 9 that happens 10% of the time. Currently 9 coins are required only for 99 and 94 cents. (That's without half dollars, if you use them then it's only 8). If you have dimes and half dollars, it's an average of 2.5 and a max of 5.

Also, US dimes are small and lightweight

I find them to be too small. I like the simplicity of removing a decimal place, but I'd prefer penny-sized dimes and quarter-sized half dollars.

If we assume it takes about 15 seconds to chug a bud, and that an eagle's wingspan is about 6ft, this leads to 528ft/15s, or ~24Mph.

Either you need a faster car, you chug your beer quickly, or you grow some oversized eagles.

I choose to assume the man meant what he said, has a slowish car that can only hit 75mph, but can chug a beer in a respectable 5 seconds.