Quote Originally Posted by Bob Salomon View Post
The dealer has large signs in their booths stating Tax Free Sale or We Pay the Tax.
They can post all the signs they like with those statements, but they still collect sales taxes if the jurisdiction requires it. Somewhere in the calculation of the dealer's profit margin, is a line where the seller calculates his profit margin. He may have $1000 on that camera, but he's already figured in the sales tax, table rental, sales overhead, etc. It may not be marked as such on your receipt, but in that $940 (net of $1000 - $60) you paid the sales tax.

Around here, and I'm quite sure it's the same way elsewhere, the appliance and furniture stores are always running sales that state what you cited. However, they're still paying taxes to the state on their gross taxable sales.

The same holds true for pro athletes. If a pro basketball player from Chicago, plays a game in New York City, he pays income taxes on his earnings for that game to New York City (state, county, etc.). The player from New York likewise pays income tax to the city of Chicago when he plays there. And those jurisdictions regularly audit players for compliance. The same goes for entertainers.

Early in my finance career I was a specialist in sales taxes for our company. A friend of mine and I also ran a small business setting up books of account for professionals like doctors, lawyers, dentists, etc. Taxes of every type were always set up on the books so there was no chance of the bookkeeper making a mistake of omission. We also had a CPA as a partner, and he was as thorough an accountant as you could want.