“A state can “end” sales taxes- by making the retailer pay them instead of the consumer...”
There is no way to predict who will end up paying that tax by simply trying to shift it to the retailer. That’s the lesson of Tax Incidence.
Some or all of the tax may be borne by the retailer in the form of lower profit. Some or all of the tax may fall on the consumer in the form of higher prices. If the retailer’s expenses go up and his income goes down he may go out of business. That’s one way tax incidence plays out. Depends upon what his margins are and whether his product is something that customers regard as essential.
Yeah, the lack of certainty makes the subject complicated.
All this talk of reducing corp taxes to increase US global sales made a point with me that I’d never imagined. Foreign customers had been paying a significant share of our federal taxes!
Now that other nations have advanced it’s a net loss, but decades ago it was a good idea.