re: Spent a week in Boston, sales tax was a surprise!

The additional burden on businesses from collecting a sales tax is often overlooked. I'm a CPA and for your average small business collected and paying in sales tax is a never ending pain in the arse. Part of these "consumption" tax discussions is making just about everything sales taxable. Everyone offering a service would have to start charging sales tax.

Consumers do not know or care about the difference between what you are receiving for your goods or service and the sales tax on it. The fact is it would end up making everything look more expensive, causing small businesses to have to eat some portion of the sales tax percentage by lowering their prices.