If taxes are included in price, the consumer can just look at the price and compare rather than jumping through the additional mental hoop to determine if one item is subject to sales tax, and what its price is in tgat case.
It's one of those things that's advocated by tax-haters and seems like it might do what they say it does, but in practice just makes life more annoying while doing nothing useful. See also: having to manually file taxes, no matter how simple.
It's not about the consumer. The price is listed before tax to manipulate you into feeling like it's cheaper. If they add tax while you check out, you're basically already committed to purchasing the product.
If you have two items and sales taxes are included in the price of one but not the other, the only way you can know which one has the taxes on it is to go look at some government website that lists all of the categories the tax applies to and those it does not.
On the other hand, if the taxes are not included in prices then you will see which one has taxes at checkout and elect not to purchase the item with taxes, preferring the item without taxes.
Furthermore, with taxes included in prices you are more susceptible to unscrupulous vendors charging taxes that should not be applied and pocketing the extra margins. One example of that is with the manufacturer of Niche coffee grinders charging VAT to international customers and pocketing the extra margin.
> On the other hand, if the taxes are not included in prices then you will see which one has taxes at checkout and elect not to purchase the item with taxes, preferring the item without taxes.
Why would you care? Having taxes included in sticker prices doesn’t change how much it costs you, only what percentage goes to your government. The only situation where not including taxes is potentially useful is when you explicitly don’t want to pay taxes, but you’re still happy to pay a higher price, if it means less money to the government.
Also in Europe we have a very simple solution to this problem. Every price tag has two numbers. The number in big font includes taxes, the little number underneath is without taxes. If you’re desperate to avoid giving cash to the government, then you just need to find items with the smallest delta between the two numbers. Retailers are also obliged to display both numbers, and provide a tax breakdown on your receipt, so you penny pinch your taxes to your hearts content.
> the only way you can know which one has the taxes on it is to go look at some government website
In Europe the tax is listed separately on the bill by law, no need to visit any website.
The amount of tax charged isn't hidden in Europe, it's just that the most prominent number is the total sum. The pre-tax part and all the taxes are also available separately for your information.
If taxes are included in price, the consumer can just look at the price and compare rather than jumping through the additional mental hoop to determine if one item is subject to sales tax, and what its price is in tgat case.