Most of our major purchases are done in California and the cumulative ( state/county/city ) sales tax rate is about 9% and while I notice the amount on bigger ( > $100 ) it does not trouble me too much.
I believe sales taxes can be deducted on the state and federal tax returns although in the case of the federal reporting, the state taxes provide a larger deduction. Absent action by Congress, this deduction goes away in 2014.
•I hate it when the sticker price is not in fact what I am expected to pay. Varies by venue, but in some places the sticker price reflects the price before sales tax and then you go to pay for it and the amount you have to shell out is that price plus the sales tax. That sure makes me aware of it. See below for more about “my view of sales tax”.
• Reciprocally, though, when the venue is such that the sticker price is the amt you pay, I don’t tend to think about the portion of it that’s actually sales tax
•I don’t resent taxes generically, although when I’m aware of them I’m likely to be more critically conscious about how my [del]idiots[/del] representatives in government are spending our collective public income.
• From back when I was a teenager I’ve resented sales tax. It’s one of the least fair taxes. Compare it to income tax, where the wealthy pay a higher percentage of their income as tax, or even to the oft-proposed FLAT income tax where the wealthy pay an identical percentage of their income as tax.
Is it even as fair as having the wealthy and the poor pay an identical AMOUNT of their income as tax? Nope, not even that fair: the wealthy are better equipped to buy in bulk or at wholesale. When you don’t have much money you tend to buy by the individual item, not the pack, carton, case, or pallet. You pay more per item and hence you pay more tax as an absolute quantity of taxes paid for the same number of those items.
Well, for any set of possible taxes, some will be more equitable than others. It’s not my intention to rant. But when I’m conscious of sales tax this all runs through my head a bit.
FWIW, I’m gonna buy what I’m gonna buy regardless of the tax rate. If the store can do something that makes it easier for me to keep a total in my head that I don’t have to multiply by 1.07348 to keep from overspending the cash in my wallet, I’m all for it. I also seem to vote “yes” on nearly every sales tax issue that comes up for my municipality, and I shop locally as well to keep as much of my sales tax money relevant to what I voted for.