| State level percentage sales tax is simple enough, but the US has gone overboard with every jurisdiction implementing its own form of sales tax, and implemented using asinine calculations. Sometimes percentage, sometimes flat, sometimes combination, sometimes based on the volume, sometimes based on the mass of an ingredient, sometimes based on time of year, and on and on it goes. And it could be from federal, state, county, city, transit region, federal agency. I look at my mobile phone bill or hotel receipt and there are 4 to 10 (literally 10) itemized taxes, and I have no idea if I am being scammed or not. And the items applicable to sales tax and exempt from sales tax is constantly changing. And the entities exempt from sales tax and the documentation requirements, placed on merchants, is always changing. This is just the website for US federal diplomat sales tax exemption instructions. https://www.state.gov/sales-tax-exemption/ This type of complexity exists for federal employees, for 50 different state employees, and on more local levels. I can only assume there is massive amounts of under and overpaid sales tax, with all these avenues for corruption and mistakes. And how much of the country’s productivity is wasted on calculating and auditing all of this? Edit: this turned into a long rant, but just look at what a simple merchant is expected to know or implement in its systems to sell trivial consumables: > In addition to the specific text, each tax exemption card bears one of four animal symbols indicating the specific type of tax exemption of the cardholder: • Owl: mission tax exemption cards with unrestricted tax exemption. • Buffalo: mission tax exemption cards with some degree of restriction. • Eagle: personal tax exemption cards with unrestricted tax exemption. • Deer: personal tax exemption cards with some degree of restriction. |