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Comment by roywiggins | Hacker News Reader

This is quite tricky if you live somewhere that charges sales tax.

How so? All of Europe has sales tax, and it's not a problem. Don't the published prices include tax where you live?

The US doesn't do VAT, sales tax is applied at checkout, and isn't part of the sticker price. Part of the reason is that attempts to do VAT or some other system that would incorporate the tax into the sticker price are accused of trying to hide taxes and "trick" people into not being mad about having to pay taxes. And it probably works, too- every time you check out you get a little reminder about your state's sales tax rates.

(VAT is a bit different from the way the US-style sales tax for other reasons: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value-added_tax )

Thanks. American logic is weird in so many ways. Publishing a price without including tax to consumers is forbidden here since it's misleading.

It's because it varies so much from place to place. Sales tax (possibly on certain items only!) can vary hugely just from crossing a street, because you crossed a municipal, county, or even state boundary (there are numerous examples of this last one, such as Kansas City, Kansas vs Missouri, or Bristol, Tennessee vs Virginia, where the state line runs down the middle of the street).

If you can calculate it at the till, you can calculate it when putting a sticker on the shelf.

But you can't put out a flyer with advertised prices, unless you do a print run for every store.

It's difficult, but everyone in a local area knows already.

Here the prices on the shelves include the tax.

Is everything priced in round numbers after tax too?

Many (all?) European countries include VAT in the price, but prices of 9.99, 0.99 etc. are all too common.

Yes.

You are confusing "misleading stickers" and "sales tax" I think

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