Including Taxes in the Posted Price

In Colin Grey's video Death to Pennies he mentions how it is absurd that we do not include tax in posted prices at stores. As a result of this oversight individuals are unable to efficiently use their change to pay for items. My problem is with inefficiency of the whole affair; calculating the tax one time when marking the price on the shelf as well as the price being constantly priced and repriced in the heads of the customers and then recalculated again at the register. While the register does that instantaneously we humans tend to struggle even with the most basic of math. The result must be lost time, more stress and I would assume lost sales.

I think the excuse that if we include the tax in the prices people will be dismayed by the higher prices. I is exaggerated. Individuals take tax into account when making a purchase so why would they not switch from expecting tax to expecting higher prices?

Some Thoughts on SPLOST (and the Green Line Extension)

A SPLOST or a special purpose local-option sales tax is what the State of Georgia is putting to a vote in order to improve their pitiful commute times. I think this is a great idea, primarily because it localizes a normally toxic statewide issue. The  situation that comes to mind is what happens in Massachusetts every time funding for an MBTA project is brought up. At those times residents in the Western part of the Commonwealth howl (justifiably I might add) that they have had it with funding transportation projects for Boston and it's suburbs. As a result projects tend to die or not get the proper funding they need. 

For years the Green Line Extension Project has been bandied about but has yet to be fully funded. For situations such as this in comes a mechanism like SPLOST, which if localized down to a municipality or a series of municipalities, could make community specific transportation projects easier to fund, and funded by those who would benefit the most.  It would properly puts the cost of living in a high density urban environment on the people who live near and benefit from it. Now as a resident of Somerville I would have no problem being assessed an extra 1% on my purchases made within Somerville in order to pay for the project. I'm sure many people in Somerville, Cambridge & Medford (not to mention other North Shore towns and I-93 Commuters) would feel the same way.

I do not know the specifics of how or if you could pass something of this nature in Massachusetts but I think localized tax vehicles are a serious option in attempting to rectify the growing infrastructure spending deficit in this country.