Sales taxes are collected on mail-in rebates, they are NOT collected on
"instant rebates".

The rest of your post is conjecture that may be true in some cases and
not true in others. From the customer's perspective, it doesn't matter:
An instant rebate is just a sale price (and sales taxes are NOT paid
on the rebate amount; only the "net" rings on the register and is
charged tax).


M Berger wrote:
You have missed a big part of the picture.

With mail in rebates, the store sales figures aren't
decreased as they would be with the instant reduction.
Localities like it because they get the full sales tax
amount.

In most cases the store doesn't pay the rebate, the parent
company or manufacturer does.


Barry Watzman wrote:
An "instant rebate" isn't a rebate at all, it's just a sale price.
And no doubt that it's better than a mail-in rebate of the same
amount, but you will NEVER find "instant rebates" that are the
equivalent of the larger mail-in rebates. The rebate "system" depends
on the fact that only a minority of buyers will ever apply for the
rebate.