Should tariffs be called “sales taxes”?

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Conor Rafferty from Watertown, Massachusetts, asks:

Suppose we were to call tariffs what they are: a sales tax on certain goods produced by certain foreign countries. Everybody knows what a sales tax is. Most people are fuzzy on the concept of a tariff, and many entertain a vague notion that somebody else is paying it.

“Tariff” may be the “most beautiful word in the dictionary,” according to President Donald Trump, but it’s a word that many Americans don’t know the definition of.

Thirty-eight percent of Americans think tariffs are a fee that “foreigners pay for selling products to the United States,” while 17% can’t define the term, according to a 2026 survey from the Council on Foreign Relations and Morning Consult.

They’re a tax that U.S. importers pay to the U.S. government. To pay for that tax, U.S. businesses can either absorb those costs or pass them along to you. And we have been seeing businesses pass those costs along to customers. American families each paid an average of more than $1,700 in tariff costs between Feb. 2025 and Jan. 2026 , according to a report from Democrats on Congress’ Joint Economic Committee. This year, families are expected to pay $2,500.

Experts agree that the term could be more accessible. “‘Tariff’ sounds abstract, and it doesn't sound like something that affects everyday consumers,” said Jennifer Stromer-Galley, a professor of information studies at Syracuse University.

It doesn’t help that Trump has incorrectly stated that tariffs are “paid for by foreign countries.”

“That claim is false and misleading, and I think further obfuscates the real economic impact the tariffs have on people here in the U.S.,” Stromer-Galley said.

Are tariffs a sales tax?

Technically, tariffs aren’t sales taxes. An actual sales tax is a fixed percentage and it’s placed on a defined set of goods and services, Stromer-Galley said.

Sales taxes are also applied when the customer actually buys the good or service at the retail level.

When it comes to tariffs, businesses may respond to them differently depending on what pressures they’re facing, Stromer-Galley said.

Stormer-Galley said it’s really a “business tax.”

Steven Durlauf, an economics professor at the University of Chicago, said he thinks the most accurate term would be “imported goods sales tax.”

But even if the phrase “sales tax” isn’t perfect, tariffs still operate similarly.

“Functionally, we are seeing that a number of businesses across the United States have made choices to increase the cost of goods because they paid the tariff cost. So, functionally, it becomes a kind of sales tax,” Stromer-Galley said.

What if tariffs were called “sales taxes”?

If tariffs were called a sales tax, then it becomes “much more concrete” to consumers that they’re facing price increases for the goods and services that they pay for, Stromer-Galley said.

“When you think about a sales tax, it has real pocketbook implications. It's ‘my money.’ We experience sales taxes on a daily basis as we go and buy gasoline and milk,” Stromer-Galley said. “I think you'd see stronger public opinion against it.”

Durlauf also said this label would clarify the effects tariffs have on goods and could have led to less support for the economic policies enacted by this presidential administration.

“American thinking is very much primed to have a visceral hostility to taxes,” Durlauf said.

Wording is important, like we see with the “estate tax.” The estate tax is a tax placed on property that gets transferred after someone’s death.

Republicans, who have historically been opposed to it, have referred to it as the “death tax” since at least 1996.

“As soon as you call it a death tax, then the public's perspective about this idea of an estate tax changes dramatically. The idea that somehow your family, upon your death, would pay additional taxes — that doesn't seem fair,” Stromer-Galley said.

Frank Luntz, a consultant for the Republican party, conducted focus groups that found 68% of people are against the "estate tax.” But when it was called the “death tax,” the number against it rose to 78%, reported Business Insider.

“The labels that are used by politicians to describe their policies really do shape the public's perspectives on those policies,” Stromer-Galley said.