Watching a documentary, there was aremark from the journalist on how, due to how wildly taxation on goods may vary, from area to area, in the US, most retailers do not put the full prices on the shelves and instead just tally it at checkout.
This made no sense to me, a european, as when I go to any regular shop, prices already include all taxes applicable to the product.
There are specialty stores where VAT and other taxes may not be applied on the price on the shelf but those are usually wholesellers, selling for professionals, that already know what additional taxes will be added and at which rates, at checkout.
Not having the full price you’ll be paying, on display, seems very underhanded and a bad practice. The client should know how much they are going to pay from the moment they pick an item.
That is awful.
It gets worse.
A lot of incorporation law is done at the state level, so most corporations are incorporated in Delaware where there are no corporate taxes and specialized corporate law courts.
A lot of credit and gift cards are out of South Dakota because that state has favorable credit card and gift card laws.
A lot of the laws of the country are written at the state level by design.
That is an entire level of idiocy and corruption by itself.
I imagine that these kinds of issues come up a lot in other federal systems. Not all decisions are made at the national level, with significant decisions made at the local or state level. Hell, a lot of federal agencies’ jobs is to be a resource for states, in both budget and technical expertise.
States in the United States have a lot of the competencies that nations in the EU do, including state run militaries. It is just usually hard for a lot of non-Americans to understand how much power is given away.
Tax harmonization is an ongoing struggle.
The Nederlands and Ireland have extremely low taxation rates for companies, which is causing many companies to move to these countries and effectively undercutting their country of origin. And now that I think about it, Luxembourg has the same issue.
But completely waving taxation is not legal, at any level.
I’m aware the american states could be considered countries. Unfortunately, the US being a somewhat more homogeneous country at its inception, never took the opportunity to create a good legal super structure. The end result is the conflicting federal and state level.
It was never a homogeneous country at its inception. The colonies were considered to be internally sovereign and the initial federal government was little more than a mutual defense fact, a joint military, and customs union.
Hell, the Continental Congress which conducted the war consisted of representatives of the various colonial legislatures.
Regardless. It had a better chance to it. And nowadays a bunch of countries with wildly varying cultures, completely different languages and a lot of unsolved baggage is doing it better.
If it was to be another group of independent nations, fine. But the moment federation is considered and considering the duress it had to take from the start, against a common enemy, true, organized union would be easier and simpler.
It is important to keep in mind that corporations, at that time the Constitution was written, usually required a law to be passed for each corporation. There is also some federal regulation due to the interstate commerce clause.