Sales Tax

Oregon is one of the few states that does not have a sales tax, and I am perfectly fine with it. Periodically though, someone raises the issue that we should have a sales tax for one reason or another. Perhaps we should. But let me tell you what I think is the big problem with sales taxes: it is not that it raises the prices of goods, it is that the price you pay at the register is not the price marked on the item. In other words, the merchant has an item marked for sale for a dollar and you go to check out in a state with sales tax and they tell you they want a dollar and so many cents. This is stupid and annoying.

There are any number of other items that are taxed by the state and federal governments that do not suffer from this kind of annoying sticker shock. Things like gasoline, cigarettes and tobacco are all taxed, and the taxes never show up, they are practically invisible.

So if you are going to put in a sales tax, make it invisible. Make it a percentage of a store's gross receipts. Now I am sure there are some sharpies who are going to quibble about a tenth of a percentage point here or there. Don't let that bother you. We are not concerned about hundreds or thousands of dollars the accountants will shave their tax bills by, we are concerned about the millions of dollars of tax revenue we will receive.

And while you are making laws, make one that causes the total tax to be printed on each reciept, especially cigarettes, alcohol and gasoline. That would educate people.