That's not my problem... And I might add that if the people won't pay the tax, it is a good indication that the tax is confiscatory.
Maybe you would like to replace the sales tax with an income tax.
Places that have sales tax normally already have income tax.
But if you are not arguing for the elimination of the sales tax, how do you propose collecting it?
Again, not my problem. Causing a business owner to become the responsible agent of the government due to the irresponsibility of the citizen sure isn't it - And that goes for taxing employment too.
Let the state hire it's own agent to stand in front of the citizen and take the money directly from the citizen's wallet, and I guarantee that taxation would become much lower very quickly - Similar to county taxation of property. I am made quite aware of what the county costs twice a year.
In an era where people will loot stores whenever they can get away with it, I don’t believe you can assert that a tax is confiscatory when people won’t pay it. People would take the toys out of your front yard if they thought you wouldn’t shoot them.
And if your state has tax cheats, it is your problem, because the state is going to get money to pay for services somehow, and if it isn’t coming from the tax cheats, it is going to come from the people who obey the law simply because it is the right thing to do, not because they are afraid of going to jail.
I guess that isn’t your problem if you are in the latter category, but it is if you are in the former category. Unless you like paying taxes for all the tax cheats. I don’t.
Many states have income and sales tax because it is a good mix of taxes that spreads the burden fairly evenly, and provides a reasonable and predictable source of revenue in various economic conditions.
I don’t have the problem you seem to have with businesses that make money from people in a state being tasked with collecting taxes for the state. However, I would be happy to support a law that reimbursed business for that task. Of course, such a reimbursement would be paid for by taxes, including business taxes, so I imagine the businesses probably are just as well off under the current scheme.
It isn’t the cost of collecting sales tax that is the burden in this case though — it is the difficulty competing with businesses that charge 5-8% less for the same items, because they are not collecting the taxes, and people who buy from them are not paying their taxes directly as the law requires.