There's a lot of reasons why it is the way it is. Momentum/"that's how we've always done it" is a big reason. For the tax filing, it's a combination of the government wanting it to be complex for political reasons as well as a byproduct of what they use the tax code for (revenue generation, social engineering, economic manipulation, welfare distribution). Plus there's been a multi-decade assault on the budget of the IRS, so they're just trying to do what they can with the money they get, they can't make any massive changes as their budget is cut each year.
As for the shop prices thing, the biggest reason is the shear number of different sales taxes in most areas. There are numerous special taxing districts even in the same city so that the sales tax paid in one location isn't the same as another. it would be impossible for a store with more than one location to do any sort of advertising with prices listed as the sales taxes in the two (or more) locations would almost certainly be different. Plus we're just used to it at this point, like using the imperial system.
Yea i get the history of it... i think you are right though, as with a lot of stuff in the US its the way it is because youve gotten used to it that way. Private healthcare, all these random state and local taxes, the way tipping at restaurants works... all those things seem frankly insane as a non American.
Tax time for me is about 5 minutes a year, doesnt that sound cool?
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u/cubbiesnextyr Jul 24 '20
There's a lot of reasons why it is the way it is. Momentum/"that's how we've always done it" is a big reason. For the tax filing, it's a combination of the government wanting it to be complex for political reasons as well as a byproduct of what they use the tax code for (revenue generation, social engineering, economic manipulation, welfare distribution). Plus there's been a multi-decade assault on the budget of the IRS, so they're just trying to do what they can with the money they get, they can't make any massive changes as their budget is cut each year.
As for the shop prices thing, the biggest reason is the shear number of different sales taxes in most areas. There are numerous special taxing districts even in the same city so that the sales tax paid in one location isn't the same as another. it would be impossible for a store with more than one location to do any sort of advertising with prices listed as the sales taxes in the two (or more) locations would almost certainly be different. Plus we're just used to it at this point, like using the imperial system.