FYI here in Michigan newspapers and magazines aren’t taxed. This used to irk me as a kid when sometimes the checkout ladies didn’t realize that and tried to tax my Compute! Gazette.
I prefer the fact that the tax is added on. It keeps the issue much more visible when tax increases are proposed.
Not everyone pays sales tax. If I buy something for resale, and I have the proper state paperwork, the sale is exempt from sales tax.
Bingo. However everyone in the US knows, or ought to know, that the tax is added to the advertised price. So the advertised price is still a basis for comparison shopping since the tax is the same percentage for all stores.
If the advertised price is less, the final tax-included price will be less.
One thing to watch for in large items like automobiles. The state wants to get its proper tax and so the dealer usually has to use the manufacturers suggested price in tax computation. So the tell you that they are discounting the $25000 car to 20000 and giving you 5000 for your heap for a difference of 15000. However in the tax calculation they usually are forced to use the 25000 figure.
In the UK The prices of branded goods were protected by a system called resale price maintenance which was outlawed in the 1960’s, except for the price of books. The reason for this exception was because it was felt that without this safeguard many independent bookshops would be forced out of business. This practise ceased about five years ago. Hence the growth of cheap books in such places as supermarkets.
In WI at least, a seller may include sales tax in the posted price if it’s made clear that they have done so. I do this when selling jewelry at art/craft festivals (with a sign posted at the spot where I accept payment) because I don’t care to haul out a calculator for each transaction. You want a pair of $20 earrings, you owe me $20. I let the spreadsheet at home do the backward math. Sure, this means that my actual price per piece varies depending on the local tax, but it’s a matter of pennies and I can’t be arsed to care.
It’s also exempt for a tax-exempt non-profit org that meets the right classification.
But the goods you resell would get taxed at the time of the resale, right?
It’s also normally the case in Canada that prices are exclusive of GST (Goods and Services Tax = Federal Sales Tax) and, where applicable, provincial sales tax (Alberta doesn’t have PST).
However, prices sometimes do include GST. That lets stores have silly “Pay no GST!!!” sales, as though that was some fantastic deal, and I have a strong suspicion many people think they’re somehow not giving the feds their share during such sales (when in fact all it means is that the store is having a 6% off sale).
To avoid being attacked by the math geeks, yes I know the savings are actually fractionally under 6% since it’s 6% of the discounted price not 6% of the original price. Makes a teensy bit of a difference.
Actually, the law is that sales tax has to be charged on a newspaper over the counter. There was a big deal made about that a few years ago and one of the local Circle K stores had a printed chart regarding what they had to charge sales tax on and what got taxed as food, etc.
Vending machines are sales tax exempt. I load up the coke machine and whatever I get out of it is mine, but when Coca-Cola delivers an order to put into the machine, I can’t use my tax-exemption as a reseller, I have to pay them sales tax.
That’s an occasional sales come-on in the US as well. Somewhere in the fine print at the bottom of the ad flyer it will note that sales tax is included in the prices. I once asked this very same question, pointing out that it’s occasionally done for sales, so why don’t they just do it all the time? The article has since expired.
There are a variety of transactions that are not charged sales tax.
Items that are shipped across state lines. (This can be exploited for small but expensive things if you have a trustworthy relative in another state. 
)
Items purchased by the Federal Government (NASA, US Air Force, US Geological Survey, etc.).
In California there are agencies like some rehabilitation agency (I can’t remember the name) that are exempt.
The afformentioned resale.
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They’re supposed to. If you purchase for resale and don’t then sell it, you’re supposed to pay use tax, which in California is the same rate as sales tax.
For tools and things like art supplies, paint can be purchased for resale, but a brush shouldn’t be, unless you intend to glue it to a canvas and sell it.
I know far too much about sales tax for being a former Oregonian.
Most vendors pass sales tax on to the customer (because they can), so they don’t have to pay it or even deal with it as much. The tax is marked up separately in the register and on the receipt, so when it comes time to pay the man there’s less work to be done. Some find it more expedient to their business not to bother with pennies and just work out the tax later.
<nitpick> The GST is a value-added tax, not a sales tax. I believe that sales taxes are charged on the total final price, but value-added taxes are charged on the difference between sale price and cost.
A businessperson gets to charge GST for the final sale price of the item, but essentially gets a rebate for the GST paid on supplies, and must remit only the difference. (I think. I’m still learning about this stuff.)
As someone you has worked on systems at the headquarters of many large retailers, that is a good point. The merchandising and pricing people have enough to worry about as it is. Lots of internal pricing schemes are complicated on their own. It is vastly preferable to just let things take care of themselves at the register (they may have stores in many jurisdictions with many rates) than try to engineer all of them to take tax structures into account from the start. It can be done with tax databases integrated into the systems of course but the whole concept requires jumping through many mental and procedural hoops.
That’s what I wondered, too… after all, you’d think so, wouldn’t you?
That was the best I could come up with as well. Airfares here are advertised in BIG LETTERS at the tax exclusive price, but the Tax inclusive price (which includes surcharges and other fees) is generall advertised in smaller print further down the ad. This is purely so JetStar can advertise "Brisbane to Sydney One Way for $79!Plus fees, taxes and charges, total cost $147.23 " All most people see is “Alright, cheap airfares! I’m going to Sydney!” and it’s not until they pay for it do they they realise it probably would have been cheaper to drive or get the train. 
(And those figures weren’t exact, either- just illustrating a point)
GST in Australia isn’t applied to everything- fresh fruits and vegetables are exempt, for example- but our retailers manage just fine anyway. Fun fact: Lots of stores here change their price tags every couple of days or weeks anyway, for various reasons (sale prices, prices changing, etc) and it’s not that much extra work.
When I worked in the supermarkets as a nightfiller, we’d often change the prices on items because a sale had ended/begun, or because the price had changed. Where I work now, we change a significant percentage of the store’s price tickets every week or so because of specials, sales, or general price changes. It’s a fact of business here, so I can’t really buy the “But we’d have to change the price tickets!” argument.
Incidentally, The idea of tax rates changing all the time depending on who’s running for Mayor or which bridge needs refurbishment or whatever just seems completely alien to me.
What’s interesting is this insistence on knowing what percentage of the price is going to the Government… even here, it’s on your receipt at the bottom (“This sale includes GST of $X.xx”), but more importantly, does it really matter? All that should matter is that this Widget is going to cost you $4.25 , and it shouldn’t matter whether or not the government is getting $4.24 of that or $0.11c. As far as I’m concerned, the “Cost” and the “Price” of a good is How much money I will have to pay for it- which includes taxes, fees, charges, and duties. I don’t give a rat’s ass what the the taxes are, as long as the entire, all-inclusive price is clearly displayed. That’s just me though, and evidently most people in North America feel differently about it.
Incidentally, you do see RRP (Recommended Retail Price) on things here- often that’s the price, but if it isn’t, the actual price (which is just as likely to be lower) is clearly marked on the shelf or a price sticker.
Also, some of us can order the things using our military APO/FPO addresses and thus be exempt from paying sales tax. 
And when the price is inclusive, like gasoline, the gov’t takes full advantage and taxes at a much higher rate.
In CA, AFAIK, you must ask the State BoE to post prices with the sales tax added in, as if you do that, you’ll get the benefit of rounding a lot. If you have only a few items for sale, you can get permision.
Trust me, it isn’t beyond merchants here to make the prices of most items at the exact penny price where they’d get an extra half-cent of sales tax every time someone bought certain items.
However, in places with a VAT etc, this rounding goes to the Government, AFAIK, so they are fine with it.
true but for the beginning and end of the merchandise chain (the government and the poor consumer) GST is a basically sales tax. GST also seems an inefficient sales tax to me as each manufacturer or distributor in the chain pays a chunk and claims a rebate, with lots of paper work.
[QUOTE=Sunspace
A businessperson gets to charge GST for the final sale price of the item, but essentially gets a rebate for the GST paid on supplies, and must remit only the difference. (I think. I’m still learning about this stuff.)[/QUOTE]
You’ve got it exactly correct.
A business pays GST on their supplies, and charges GST on their sales. In Australia he must lodge a Business Activity Statement (BAS) it is usually lodged quarterly, which spells out how much GST he paid and how much GST he collected, and then pays the difference to the government. (Or if very lucky and the difference is in his favour recevies a cheque back from the government)
An important point about this. Many states have a method to collect taxes for out of state purchases you didn’t pay sales tax on. Here in Ohio, when you do your state taxes they ask you if you made any purchases in other states and didn’t pay sales tax on them. If you did, and answer honestly, you have to pay a use tax. Ohio has had this for many years, but didn’t really make a big deal about it until internet sales started taking off. Other states have something similar or have passes similar laws for the same reason.