Yeah like these do not have to be separate things. If I advertise a final price to you, "you will pay $4.95 for this thing," I can still communicate on the rece

Yeah like these do not have to be separate things. If I advertise a final price to you, "you will pay $4.95 for this thing," I can still communicate on the receipt that $0.50 of that went to sales tax, and if you are paying in a way that excludes taxes from being collected, e.g. SNAP benefits, there is no reason that you can't be charged only $4.45 for that because the tax is deducted from the advertised purchase price. If you are concerned about benefits that are "use 'em or lose 'em" you can always remit the tax to the person as physical cash so that there is transparency there. This is just a pareto inefficiency; there appears to be a way to make some folks better off without making any other folks worse off.