>>The best solution, IMHO, coin denominations aside is have retailers meld the tax into all products prices so what you see on the tag is exactly what you pay - no surprises at the register. They already do it with gas (52.5 cents/litre contains GST). I believe they do this in England with their VAT.
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>>>Do you know that Quebec round their tax to the upper cent? Like $1.011 will be rounded to $1.02? With a governement that give the example...
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>>>>Sure... especially if their cash register used a rounding function to the nearest quarter (which it probably would for convenience). You forget that we only had coins that were a portion of a cent.
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> Personally, I hate the idea of retailers hiding the true cost of taxes in the sale price. It makes it easy for the government to increase taxes without people realizing how much they actually pay. Gas stations do that right now, so people don't see the $.30+ per gallon (30%+) in taxes they actually pay.
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> I think people would be much better off if all taxes had to be paid directly - ie. not just taken right out of your paycheck. I think a lot of people would wakeup if they had to start making out checks to the gov't every week for 25%+ of their take home pay. Add in the extra 7% your employer has to match for Social Security to your check. It would go a long way to getting the tax system changed.

30%!!!!!! You poor thing :-). Try it up here. I once saw a breakdown of gas prices in Ontario based on $0.50 / litre and the actual cost of the gas was $0.19. That's 60%+ in taxes or a tax rate of 160%+. The same applies to booze up here as well. Including exchange and duty I can buy a case of Canadian beer cheaper in the US.

I still would prefer it melded. I hate having to figure out which tax rate applies to something and adding the 7, 8 or 15% to the price to decide if it's worth it or if I can afford it.