What industries should the state never subsidize?

[Machjo]

9 minutes ago, Zeitgeist said:

Calculating tax at gas pumps is a simple computed algorithm.  The cost is nominal.

Perhaps. I've never worked at a gas station so I wouldn't know. I have rarely but on occasion come across a small shop owner calculating the GST manually, presumably due to lack of money to automate it or maybe the machine was down that day. regardless of the reason, that imposed far more work than if the GST was just added to the business tax instead. In  the airline industry, it may happen that a person must calculate multiple international taxes, airport fees, and surcharges converted from a different currency. While automation exists for most cases, there are still enough times when they all had to be calculated manually, adding to that figuring out what tax applies to what charge, etc.

You may be right that a fuel surcharge at the pump is pretty straightforward, but that does not apply to all cases. For the most part, a rule of thumb would seem to suggest one large tax at the end of the year rather than billions of mini-taxes.

[cannuck]

On 10/11/2018 at 9:27 PM, Machjo said:

You may be right that a fuel surcharge at the pump is pretty straightforward, but that does not apply to all cases. For the most part, a rule of thumb would seem to suggest one large tax at the end of the year rather than billions of mini-taxes.

"at the pump" taxes are not calculated by hand in any place I have ever been, and I buy a LOT of fuel.  For road diesel:  the vendor simply collects everything at the till based on what the register/computer puts aside from every purchase - or in some cases (Flying J for instance) it does not even show on the receipt as a separate line item.   We already have a "two tax rate" system, one for road fuel (including provincial road taxes) and one for non-road (what used to be called "died diesel" or "purple diesel" but now called "reefer fuel" - no, not THAT - i.e. the Trudeau kind of reefer, but refrigeration units on insulated semi trailers).

The calculations are usually done from the total amount of fuel bought vs. the total amount of fuel sold in any particular reporting period.

Edited October 14, 2018 by cannuck

[Machjo]

2 hours ago, cannuck said:

"at the pump" taxes are not calculated by hand in any place I have ever been, and I buy a LOT of fuel.  For road diesel:  the vendor simply collects everything at the till based on what the register/computer puts aside from every purchase - or in some cases (Flying J for instance) it does not even show on the receipt as a separate line item.   We already have a "two tax rate" system, one for road fuel (including provincial road taxes) and one for non-road (what used to be called "died diesel" or "purple diesel" but now called "reefer fuel" - no, not THAT - i.e. the Trudeau kind of reefer, but refrigeration units on insulated semi trailers).

The calculations are usually done from the total amount of fuel bought vs. the total amount of fuel sold in any particular reporting period.

True, and most gas stations belong to either franchisees or large corporations directly I assume, so they can afford economies of scale. This might not apply to a small shop owner who sells smart-phone cases for example. He might not have the money to buy the machine and so must do everything by hand. It's rare, but I've come across it... though I can't remember what product or dish it was, if it was a shop or restaurant. So yes, it's rare. But even then, a person needs to buy the machine and software or program it himself, which requires knowledge of how to program it and time to do it. It probably doesn't take much time to learn and program it, but it all adds up. The reason it's rare is because it's worth the investment to automate it, something that would not be needed if no value-added tax existed at the retail level in the first place.