Little did OP know that while they were watching this strange performance unfold, the other guy was sneaking up behind OP and stole their wallet.

Technical education opens doors, or your child.

Please don’t open my child.

Guess how many bombs the TSA has protected people from.

Last week, a vendor sold an item for $10. With tax, that item costs $12. Let’s pretend a 50% markup (which is reasonable for retail but insanely high for groceries):

• they made $5 profit
• they recouped $5 for their costs
• they collected $2 of tax for the government

Now the government has a GST holiday and there’s no tax. I went to the store and bought the item and it still cost me $12.

• they made $7 profit
• they recouped their usual $5 for their costs
• they collected $0 of tax for the government

The main thing is that their costs for that item didn’t increase and they’re still selling it at its original ”final” price (because they added the tax amount to the sticker price). That tax savings went straight into profits. It was intended for the consumer to save money but the consumer is spending the same amount and the government isn’t getting anything. That money went somewhere.

Edit: that assumes that the claim made in the post is true. It’s definitely not going to be true across the board, but doubtless there’s some fuckery afoot in some stores.

Explain your math. It’s absolutely 100% benefit to the seller and 0 benefit to the buyer.