Stephen Sprunk wrote:
On 23-Jan-12 11:26, Neil Williams wrote:
On Jan 23, 6:00 pm, "Paul Rigg" wrote:

Different sales tax rates apply to different goods in my state.

Not a reason not to include them in the price. My point was that if
customer X enters the shop, then customer Y enters the shop, and both
buy the same thing, both would be charged the same for it?

Not in the US, unfortunately. There are various buyers that do not have
to pay sales taxes, either at all or for certain uses. So, even
customers who buy the same things in the same place may not pay the same
tax.

That really doesn't affect a lot of buyers:

In my state, units of government and schools (not non-school educational
organizations) and churches and charities are exempt from sales and
use taxes.

It's not an exemption as there's no VAT in the United States, but sometimes
goods for resale are purchased at retail stores and not from wholesalers
or distributors or from the manufacturer. The reseller does not pay sales
tax to the retail store as it's not a retail transaction.

The more logical solution would be for everyone to pay the tax and for
exempt buyers to get a credit/refund. That would also seem to be less
susceptible to fraud while greatly simplifying things for merchants.

That's a load of crap. You want the merchant to handle monies that have
to be refunded, eventually, claiming it's simpler.

I was a cashier as a kid. We had electronic cash registers many years
ago. With the push of a button, there was a way to ring up a non-tax sale.
The cash register would report aggragate non-tax sales, which would be
entered into the books. No, not collecting the un-owed tax didn't impose
an additional burden because there's already bookkeeping associated with
inventory and sales and tax collection.

The buyer or reseller would then have to save his receipts; that's a burden.
He'd have to file a form with the state for rebate; that's a burden. The
state would have to process forms from a great many non-taxpayers who
aren't currently filing forms. That's a burden. The state would have to
issue the rebates. That's a burden.

In the meantime, the non-taxpayer is without money he never owed to
the state in the first place. That's a huge burden, especially if you're
talking about a cash-poor charity.

You don't know what you're talking about.