5 ms·

Well, yes, this... I am European and during my brief stay in the USA the fact that taxes were added at the cashier was awkward. I am sure you had your reasons a

• excitom 6y ago
  The biggest reason is that sales tax can be applied at the state level, then a county can add a bit more, and a city a bit more still. So for a national chain it's impossible to know the final price to put on an item until the consumer gets to the checkout register.
• roywiggins 6y ago
  It's insisted upon by anti-tax advocates, so that Americans always get reminded about exactly how much the government is adding onto the price. Otherwise, the theory goes, we would get too happy about taxes.
  • mandelbrotwurst 6y ago
    Being in favor of transparency in taxation isn't the same as being "anti-tax".
  • donarb 6y ago
    That happened in Washington state when Costco sponsored a privatization initiative to allow liquor to be sold by private stores and abolish the state stores. The private stores started advertising the non-tax price with tiny print saying that tax would be added at the register (when the state sold liquor, the price on the shelf included all liquor taxes). People were pissed thinking that the state had been ripping them off until they got to the register and found that the price was pretty much what they paid before. Actually they were paying a bit more, most people didn't read the initiative before voting on it. Now the stores print the total price in their advertisements.
    • Aloha 6y ago
      the bigger reason people voted to change that was to expand hours of access - and selection, which were pretty limited before.
  • thekyle 6y ago
    Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think there is any law that says businesses have to add sales tax on separately. Since it's the business who actually pays the tax not the consumer they could just take it out of their own profits. 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.
    • roywiggins 6y ago
      Sometimes stores will structure sales that way ("we pay the sales tax" sales), so I expect you're right. 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/ https://humanevents.com/2010/04/23/dont-give-obama-a-vat/
      • Entalpi 6y ago
        I love how the argument being played is that VAT is used to fed a big government. Like the US is huge, it requires a large government..
    • syshum 6y ago
      Business collect and remit taxation on behalf of the customer, so no the business is not "paying" the taxes. It is the consumer that owes them the business is just collecting them for the government. For which the business gets a small fee to do this service for the government. 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
• bdowling 6y ago
  Taxes are computed at the cashier because tax rates vary from state to state and city to city. If sales taxes were uniform then we would see more advertised prices including tax. One exception is in advertised gasoline prices, which usually include all the taxes, including sales tax and special gasoline taxes.
  • chillwaves 6y ago
    I assume menu prices also different from state to state, city to city. Not sure I see the issue.
    • rhino369 6y ago
      It makes it impossible to do mass marketing with prices. Best Buy can send a flyer saying "Xbox One Only 199.99!" to everyone in Illinois. But if they had to include tax, it would be 219.99 or 214.99 depending on which side of my town you live in because they tax rate changes.
      • TheSmiddy 6y ago
        This is an argument for less levels of taxation, ie sales tax should only be at state and not county level. Almost every other country in the world works fine without bait'n'switching their citizens at every single transaction.
        • sosborn 6y ago
          The thing is though, it isn't bait and switch. Everyone know exactly what it happening. I remember learning it when I was 7 - it isn't difficult. 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.
  • ciceryadam 6y ago
    But why is it possible for gasoline, and not for other items?