[hollasch]

It's just American custom to exclude some taxes from the posted price. Many countries include all taxes in the price, something I've always wished we would do in America. After that, I'd love to see the elimination of the custom of always ending fuel cost per gallon in 9/10 of a cent.

[smallerize]

Rounding sales tax on each item will often result in a different price than rounding once for the total. The store will collect the wrong amount of tax that way.

[rtkwe]

They're saying include the sales tax in the price and set the item's price such that the sum of price + all taxes is an even increment of 5 cents. Gets a little tricky with fractional sales taxes but that's only a problem where POS systems strictly enforce 2 digit cents (not sure if that's the case).

[estimator7292]

Come on, this is not complicated. It's elementary algebra. You sum the rounded prices, then add a credit or surcharge of 2 cents to make the tax come out to a round number.

The tax is on the actual, real amount in your transaction subtotal. You are charged sales tax on the actual, real money you pay for the entire transaction. Then you multiply by 1.06 or whatever the tax rate is. That's how sales tax works.

If one rearranges the equations as we all learned in 5th grade, one can compute the amount that the subtotal must be to get a round number after tax. Then you charge or credit the customer the difference.

Alternatively, the retailer can simply pay the 4 cent difference in sales tax.

That's it. You either do algebra or just pay the difference. It is not complicated.

[mattnewton]

You have to do this algebra per state and locale, and your reward is higher advertised prices than the shop next door. I think you both underestimate the problem and overestimate everyone involved in retail, especially the consumer.

I’m not saying it’s hard, I’m saying there is enough friction where it’s just not going to happen without legislation mandating it.

[metabagel]

> it’s just not going to happen without legislation mandating it.

Obviously, and I don't think anyone said otherwise.

[mattnewton]

Well, this is happening without legislation mandating it (that’s kinda the problem, our federal legislature doesn’t legislate much and is being largely ignored)

[extraduder_ire]

I'm in Ireland where EU law mandates posted prices include all taxes and charges, and fuel prices are still advertised with a .9 or .8 at the end.

They're selling a liquid, so even if it were all priced in whole cents you'd have to deal with fractional cents.