I found this unreasonable and confusing until one day I read a conservative argument that this is …

i hated it at first, but then started to appreciate how it gives visibility on the cost of senator salaries and the military.

> found this unreasonable and confusing until one day I read a conservative argument that this is actually a good thing, because it stops the government from increasing sales tax too much. It constantly reminds residents of how much extra they're paying for sales tax and encourages voting for politicians who will reduce sales tax if it's too high. Okay, it's a reasonable argument, I wasn't super against it anymore It's not really reasonable. Like, at all. You can know how much sales tax/VAT is without having to do math every time you pay a bill. For one thing, receipts can and AFAIK always include VAT separately in the EU, with a line for each VAT amount if different (e.g. in France food and alcohol are under different VAT rates, so on the receipt it says you paid X in VAT, of which Y was under 20% for alcohol, Z under 5.5% for food). You retain the same "power" while being more informed…

That conservative argument is just an excuse. The price is not shown in full, to make it harder for customer to know how much they are spending before they are at the counter. It is fully possible to show full price along with tariffs and taxes, if you want to show them. It does not necessitates misleading prices. This is just conservatives being pro-manipulation and against informed customers. When I was ordering package to a country that had tariffs, an online store shown me item price, shipping, tariffs and total price. Nothing new or shocking about showing a full price along with its breakdown.

He is correct too. Compare tax rates in the European continent to the USA. US taxes are much lower. Some states, like New Hampshire, have 0 sales tax. So if you buy something that costs a dollar, you actually pay a dollar. Not 1.06 like in Pennnsylvania, or a whopping 1.27 like in Hungary. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1f/EU_VAT_T... https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/Sales_ta...