Quote Originally Posted by Dave A View Post
GST is a straight turnover tax on the final sale. It's not a federal tax and rates vary from state to state. Some states don't have it at all and the rate is pretty low in most states that do have it.

We used to have GST here, and believe me it was easier to administer than VAT.
Even I remember that we used to have GST

I suppose my comment was more directed at the many levels of tax that the USA has, rather than the particular administration of a sales tax. I found their sales tax to be in the 8-10% range, but my understanding (based on a number of conversations) is that there are about 3 different taxes built into that (county, state, who knows what else).

When sales tax was administered was also a whole other story. If the company had offices in your state, then you had to pay sales tax, but if they were out of state then you didn't. In some cases certain stores wouldn't charge sales tax (not sure if that was based on location or item bought, e.g. buying a bagel in a train station versus out of the station).

It just seems to be such a multilayered tax system that I am sure the administration could present....challenges. I suppose because it is GST then you just pay 3% of turnover to this agency, 2% to that agency, and the other 3% to another agency. The only complication is figuring out and keeping track of what is taxed and what isn't (and who gets it).