> So yea, it really isn't that simple in the USA

It isn’t that simple in the USA. Yet it literally is that simple in every other country in the world.

I don’t understand why the average American has such main character syndrome that they genuinely believe their country is so unique that they are unable to solve problems every other country in the world has solved. Ridiculous.

Do you understand what USA means? United States, it is a union of independent states. It's like you asking why all countries in the European Union doesn't have the same taxes or why all countries in Africa don't have the same taxes.

Canada has a federal tax but in some provinces it is combined with the provincial sales tax and in other provinces there is a separate tax (or none in Alberta) so the USA is not the only federation with disparate tax regimes.

Really? Taxes in France are exactly the same as in Switzerland?

States in the US are analogous to countries in the rest of the world.

> States in the US are analogous to countries in the rest of the world.

But they aren’t. States are states, it’s literally in the name. Almost all countries in the world have states or an analogy to states.

Again, only an American would consider each of the United States as seperate countries. Totally disconnected from reality.

Many countries do not, in fact, have lower-level sovereignties with general powers with selective negative limits and a top level sovereign with limited, positive powers.

Very many countries are more like many US states are with their subordinate counties: that is, a top level sovereign with general powers and negative limits with subordinate non-sovereign entities with limited positive powers granted by the top-level sovereigns.

The United Kingdom, which unlike the United States is quite literally comprised of different countries, has managed to solve this problem.

Australia also has a similar setup to the USA, and has also managed to solve this problem.

I don’t know the inner workings of every country, but I assume there are more in the same position.

I’m sorry, but the USA is not in some crazy unique position that no other country has ever faced before. You just choose believe this inaccuracy.

> The United Kingdom, which unlike the United States is quite literally comprised of different countries

"State" is the usual legal term for sovereign juridical entities with territory, while "country" is a less formal term that often corresponds to a state.

(And the "countries" that make up the UK aren't sovereign even in theory, though some of them have some degree of home rule granted by the central sovereign.)

> the USA is not in some crazy unique position

Unique? No.

But common? Also no.

And it structurally does make solving some problems quite hard, and it makes changing the structure to resolve those problems also hard.

> Almost all countries in the world have states or an analogy to states.

Only 27 countries in the world are federal states, which is a very far cry from "almost all countries." The entire notion of a federal state is that both the federal government and the state government have independent loci of powers, and there are times when the state governments can tell the federal government to fuck off if the federal government wants it to do something. The exact degree to which this is possible varies from country to country.

For example, you seem to be comparing the US to the UK. But Scotland is not like a US state--it has far fewer powers than a US state, and what powers it does have is entirely dependent on what the UK parliament is willing to grant it. So trying to draw an analogue between a US state and a partially-devolved country within the UK is itself a mistake.

All the largest nations in the world are federations: Russia, Canada, United States, Brazil, Australia. You have to understand history and realpolitik.

> So yea, it really isn't that simple in the USA.

German VAT is also not simple. Before we had a temporary (so another layer of madness) law change, you either paid 19% VAT or 7% VAT, depending on whether you ordered your food to go or sat down at a restaurant. So the same item, for the same person would be taxed at a different rate depending on whether that person walks out with the food or carries it to a table. The restaurants simply advertise a single price and eat the difference [1]. Or to be more precise: the different tax values are priced into the single price, potentially accounting for the rough split between dine-in/takeout orders.

Despite all of this madness, we see a single price at the menu, we can pay exactly that price, and for takeout it actually is not uncommon to actually pay exactly that price. No sales tax, mandatory surcharges or gratuity, just a single, final price.

As for differences in the income needs of the counties/municipalities: this is handled with taxes on the profit of companies based in that area [2]. So the consumer never sees the differences in taxes, accounting is pushed to companies. If McD wants to advertise a fixed price nationwide, their franchisees need to eat the difference.

I get that in the US the states are more like countries in the EU, but we still manage to have the same VAT in all of Germany while apparently US sales tax can vary on the city level.

[1] there are exceptions, e.g. explicit to-go foods are advertised as such [2] there are more ways for this, but this is, IMO, the most similar way to the local sales tax in the US