Why Are We Paying Sales Tax on Tampons?

[Human101948]

2. Because the rich do no want to pay income taxes...

It is certainly ridiculous that a necessity is taxed, but it's just another thing that is more easily taxed than collecting income taxes and ineheritance taxes from the very wealthy. An example follows--

How Kansas keeps making life harder for the poor

Poor families in Kansas would pay even more in taxes under a bill the state House passed Friday.

The bill would raise the sales tax rate from 6.15 percent to 6.5 percent. Since the poor spend more of their money on basic goods and services, they are likely to be affected disproportionately by the sales tax increase.

The legislation will raise taxes on all income groups, but critics say the increase is particularly onerous for the poor because it follows a series of other demands the government has made on their finances...

....Those changes followed a decision several years ago to overhaul taxes in a way that, over several years, boosted the incomes of the middle class and wealthy but reduced the incomes of poor families, by raising sales taxes and by limiting a provision that exempted food purchases from sales taxes.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/06/12/kansas-is-about-to-raise-taxes-on-the-poor-again/

This chart shows the impact of the earlier tax overhaul:
https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=&w=1484