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Comment by kelnos

6 hours ago

I wonder if this could encourage retailers to start advertising tax-inclusive prices. That way there's no rounding in the customer transaction (if they set all their tax-inclusive pricing at multiples of 5 cents), and then the sales tax would just be calculated in aggregate, and paid electronically with no rounding.

That’s illegal in a lot of places.

  • We had a coffee shop that tried to do it. Listed prices included taxes, and the total prices were in nice whole numbers (IE, $2 for a cup of coffee, $5 for a latter, $8 for a sandwich, etc.). But regulators stopped them and they had to go back to listing the prices without the sales tax.

    It's frustrating how much needless friction gets put into the system.

  • Advertising the tax-included price is illegal? Where?

    (No snark - serious question, as I'm not from the US, and would love to see the legislation and justification which required that...)