> tax free weekend where sales tax (6.25%) is not applied

that's such a strange concept for me. i wonder what the historic reasoning there is for it, as it seems like one of those legacy things which were started to increase sales during difficult market times :D

> Also groceries never have a sales tax in Massachusetts

also interesting :) what i knew was that some or most states display the prices without tax, so you'll only know the total of your grocery trip at the checkout. never seen this here over the pond, prices always include taxes.

what's common is that different things are taxed differently. food and beverages have lower tax than non-essential things, except of course if the beverages contain alcohol, etc. yada yada blabla.

We don't have tax free weekends in Australia but fresh produce is also exempt from GST (our version of VAT). Anything that has had any "processing" done on it incurs GST though, so oranges are tax free but orange juice is not.

Education and Health are also exempt from GST.

>also interesting :) what i knew was that some or most states display the prices without tax, so you'll only know the total of your grocery trip at the checkout.

It comes up on /r/askamericans all the time, but it's not realistic to include tax on the prices because there are so many different taxing zones. A large city may have multiple. Most places you can figure it's going to be ~10% and might be pleasantly surprised when it's less. Everyone knows to figure roughly 10% extra, so it's not a chore or anything, even children figure it out.