>>Yes, I'm serious. You say the merchant remits the sales tax to the
>>government. How can you interpret this as other than the merchant
>>paying sales tax?
>
>Because I paid the fucking merchant! I pay retail plus tax, the
>merchant pays wholesale, overhead, and tax, and keeps a profit. Is
>the merchant the origin of the wholesaler's revenue, or is s/he just
>an intermediary for me?
You pay the merchant for the product.
The tax is a fixed overhead that the merchant is responsible for paying. You only pay the tax in the sense that you pay the merchant's rent and other overheads, which is to say you pay the merchant for the product and the merchant pays the wholesaler, the landlord, the government and so forth.
Do you go about saying that you pay the rent for the merchant's premises? Do you claim to be the employer of the merchant's staff?
Would you be entitled to a refund of the sales tax if it were suddenly declared an unconstitutional tax? That actually happened here a few years ago (a sales tax declared unconstitutional I mean, not a refund. Of course the vendors were entitled to the refund and the consumers didn't get a penny of it.)
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas