…because the accountants don’t count the full product cost as sales revenue, they don’t pay taxes on it.

Of course accountants don’t count the product cost as sales revenue, because, generally speaking, the point of having a business is to have sales revenue that exceeds the cost of goods sold. If not, a business won’t last very long!

You seem to be implying that the accountants leave out the revenue received from manufacturers due to coupons – you’re incorrect. Or I should say, any accountant that wishes to keep himself employed and free from legal trouble would not do such a thing because that would be tax fraud. It wouldn’t take long at all for an independent auditor (or worse, an IRS auditor) to find that.

Your wrong in saying a that 6% your paying 94% of the value. $100 is not $94. To be exact your only pay just under. DOIN THE MATH

It’s funny that you can’t communicate at an 8th grade level but you think you’re (see that – “you’re” – not “your”) qualified to give a math lesson. It’s really pretty simple (although obviously too complicated for you); you have a coupon worth one dollar, but it costs you six cents in tax. Ergo, you only get 94% of the value of the coupon. If this is too complicated for you, any non-retarded 10 year-old should be able to explain it to you.

One other point that’s not mentioned here: the superfluous “tax” charge we pay on those seller-issued coupons is likely never paid to the state as tax. It’s usually kept by the seller as revenue, because the accountants are smarter (or more conniving) than most customers are. Taxes are calculated and paid in aggregate, and because the accountants don’t count the full product cost as sales revenue, they don’t pay taxes on it.

As with the article’s author, I just try just to consider the value I’ll actually get from the coupon, not what I SHOULD get. I’m long past the point of trying to argue with imbeciles who don’t understand math, taxes, logic, etc. and don’t have the authority to override the cash register anyway.