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They'll still tax the income used to buy the groceries, the profits made from selling them, the properties used to store and prepare them, the automobiles and fuel used to transport them, and the payroll of the companies selling them.

Well, everyone needs food, but not everyone needs luxury items. Lowering taxes on basics like groceries and raising them on luxury items or even better, raising income tax for the rich, would be way better.

In general sales tax isn't a significant source of revenue for states, to the point where some states don't tax retail sales at all.

I just had a quick look at my state. Sales tax makes up 10.5% of our revenue. If you exclude things like money coming from the federal government, it's about twice that.

That's just a single data point; I was just curious.

We already don't tax most groceries, so that's not a tactic we could apply. I assumed that most states with sales taxes exclude groceries.