why is tax not included in the prices you see in shops(in the USA that is)
 

Just curious.

Why are the items not labeled with the price including the VAT + all taxes etc?

:helpme:helpme

hm.. it is here.

Because it varies state to state and even county to county. Plus it makes people feel better to pay $99.99 for something and then get hit with $8.10 tax after the fact (our tax is 8.1% here I believe).

We don't have a VAT tax yet in the USA, though the Obama administration will most likely propose one soon and Obama will claim he isn't raising taxes on the middle class. As for not adding sales tax into prices I'm guessing it's to keep you one denomination smaller; aren't you more likely to buy something at impulse forgetting about the sales tax at $9.99 rather than seeing it at $10.60?

I'm just guessing...

VAT is included here on the items. And on the receipts, you can see what part is tax/VAT.

Also on stuff like food and drinking products, our shops are additional required to show the price per kilo/litre, so we can compare easier :)

All tax is included here and the cool thing is. right before school starts every year they suspend the tax for about 30 days. thats when we usually buy big products. Tax is about 10%

A lot of places that I shop at here in South Florida like Publix, Costco, etc show the price per various units of measure.

I'm not sure if they're required to or not.