Can restaurants charge tax on each meal if all are on one bill then tax the entire bill?

Question

I took my grand children to lunch, they are 6 and11, each person was taxed and then after it was added up there was a tax again on the entire bill is this legeal? it seems like double taxing to me.

Answer 1

You're right. Sales tax is charged on the total cost of the meal.

Take your receipt back & talk to the manager.

Answer 2

The tax is applied per item. The receipt value that you might sight is the computation as a whole. But, if you will compute them individually, they would still imply the same result.  

Answer 3

Sounds like someone screwed up.  You should have complained to the manager.  Or taken it out of the tip.

Answer 4

are you sure they didn't just levy the tax on the individual items then sum it at the end?

if I have a meal that's $10 and $5 (let's say sales tax is 10% here) then they specify tax of $1 and $0.50 then at the end bill you $16.50 with the bill showing something like this:

$10 - soup

$1 tax

$5 - bread

$0.50 tax

_________

Gross: $10.50

Tax  : $1.50

Total: $11.50

all they've done there is summed the individual tax up, so check your bill and see if they've retaxed it (meaning your bill would in this instance go from $11.50 to $12.65

Answer 5

Of course that is not legal, but be sure that is what happened before you complain.  

One may be a service charge (in lieu of tip) and the other sales tax.