Agreed in practice, but there is a key difference: sales tax is uniform for all products, import tariffs are not. As a customer I want to effectively compare prices between different options. For sales tax you can simply assume a uniform 9% bump. For tariffs the fee varies for comparable products. I would prefer knowing the full price ahead of times but I absolutely need to know the relative price ranking.
> but there is a key difference: sales tax is uniform for all products
Sales tax is not uniform for all products depending on your state. My home state for example does not charge sales tax on food items and clothing. Some other special categories also have different sales tax depending on what they are - e.g. vice taxes for some items.
