Personally I'd attribute it to lobbyists hitting both parties pretty aggressively, but I'm sure some have this idea. If taxes are complicated then it means it's

Personally I'd attribute it to lobbyists hitting both parties pretty aggressively, but I'm sure some have this idea. If taxes are complicated then it means it's easy to fit in loopholes (or fair tradeoffs depending on your point of view usually) The last one though really just seems obvious from a competitive standpoint, you look cheaper if you can say that 5% of the price is not your fault. Didn't this just come up with airline ticket prices recently? Everyone wants to tack on fees and taxes at the end to make their product show up higher in search results.