So if you are trying to send a mailer or run a tv ad, what price do you do?

That's different from fees that don't vary by location, like in this article.

I think this also doubles as a political statement. Basically a subtle way to shift "blame" and make consumers feel upset about a tax, and more likely to put pressure on governments to reduce said taxes. Ultimately it's all anti-consumer.

>I mean it's just a tax the business has to pay to the government, calculated based on products sold

No, its explicitly a tax on each transaction to be paid by the buyer. You're probably thinking of corporate tax, which the company also has to pay, but is completely separate from sales tax.

From their site:

>The buyer pays the sales tax, as an addition to the purchase price, to the vendor at the time of purchase. The vendor then sends the tax to Massachusetts. For motor vehicle and trailer sales, however, the buyer pays the sales tax directly to Massachusetts.

https://www.mass.gov/guides/sales-and-use-tax

>Ultimately it's all anti-consumer.

Yeah. Fortunately, New Hampshire is a lovely place to live.

So what's stopping them putting tax-inclusive prices on shelves or on stickers on the items themselves?

Growing up in suburban Kansas City, we had both city, county and state sales taxes which could vary based on a short drive. And then there's certain entities which are allowed tax exemptions, like teachers making qualified purchases for some things.

Yes they can. Just have a constant price in that advertising region for the premium items you're advertising, eat the cost in locations with high sales tax rates (or rent, or wages, or shipping costs, or any other of the ten thousand other factors that they already deal with without issue), and make up for it in the areas where costs are lower than average.

Almost every single large business in the United States already does this, and it would be incredibly trivial for them to do it for sales tax as well.

Almost every large grocery store business does this, and a brief google street view tour of North St Louis will show multiple places where grocery stores have vanished and been replaced, if at all, by dollar stores.

the few times i remember handing over a specific sum of cash at thrift/vintage stores, indie shops, etc smaller stores here or there, they would always seem to include the tax in the displayed price if there was no computer to calculate the final tax, and the receipt (if any) was whole numbers throughout

If this were the law all retail businesses would be able to comply and it wouldn't even be a significant burden.

Each time I return, the barely letter-of-the-law scams that permeate our economy and culture are a huge aggravation and disappointment.

I know a lot of other people who also do extensive, long-term travel and who express similar sentiments: "The whole society is organized around financially draining you" etc.

And i'm pretty sure every single country in europe, and from my limited experience in asia, probably in most countries there too.

Not sure if it happens in Canada...