I’m not talking about a store guessing prices or tax, I’m talking about a consumer doing it. If I remember I’m generally paying 20% VAT on my purchases and sud

I’m not talking about a store guessing prices or tax, I’m talking about a consumer doing it. If I remember I’m generally paying 20% VAT on my purchases and suddenly I’m seeing $3 of “tax and fees” on my $10 pre-VAT bill, I’ll probably know somebody’s doing something funny. If a store receipt (online or offline) is furthermore legally required to put the pre-VAT price, VAT rate, and post-VAT price for each item separately, there’s no way to sneak in a sudden $1 fee except for putting an item for SUDDEN FEE: $1 somewhere in the list. Presumably such an item would have annoyed quite a few people more quickly and efficiently than the current situation where they need to read about it in the Boston Globe, which might have made the vendor more reluctant to impose the fee to begin with. Again, I’m not saying this situation doesn’t have its own merits, just pointing out that it only exists because there’s an opaque “tax and fees” item to sneak things into to begin with.