"Colin Youngs" wrote:

I would be very surprised to hear of any European country where retail
prices for non-trade customers are quoted net of tax. I can't claim
knowledge of every part of the world, but I thought this was a peculiarly
North American practice, more or less unknown elsewhere.

That's because VAT is standard across a country. In the US there are thousands
of taxing districts in every state, each with it's own adder to the base rate.