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Comment by matrix | Hacker News Reader

I strongly agree. This is the correct answer to the problem. That and adding sales tax to the tagged price (i.e. don't add sales tax at the time of the transaction).

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The problem with adding sales tax to the price tag is that sales tax isn't uniform across the U.S., and residents from one state can buy something and have a different sales tax applied (I see this happen frequently with Oregon -> Washington travelers).

I suppose the first step would be to unify sales (or whatever) tax across the country.

Also, sometimes the sales tax might or might not be applied depending on the status of the purchaser. When I was a in college the campus stores would always have to ask us if were students, since only non-students paid state sales tax.

In Ontario specifically the tax can depend on the total purchase: fast food purchases under $4 (total) are taxed less than those over $4, so we have a lot of $3.99 value meals. If you buy two, it's 13%, if you buy one it's 5%.

What if you buy one, and then another seconds later?

(Just curious)

Perfectly legal (although you're likely to draw intense ire from people behind you if you try it in a lunchtime lineup, since you don't actually have to leave the counter in order to create a separate transaction). Oh, and it won't work in a drive-through (not because there's anything wrong with it as such, but that ungrouping the orders makes fulfillment a pain in the butt, so restaurants usually won't do it as a matter of local policy.

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