How can you not get it? It's completely annoying - stores show a price that is not the real price. So I have to now look up what is the sales tax before I can make an informed decision.
You may be fine with it if you live there and have learned to instinctively add 9% - but to a foreign traveler, one doesn't even know what percent they should add! _Of course_ it's annoying.
P.S. I am not German.
edited to add: It's just like the insane tipping culture in US. If you don't tip, somehow _you_ are the monster. It's not a problem that restaurants don't pay a living wage, it's not a problem that they don't even have to pay the minimum legal wage (!!!) - no, the problem is not with America. It's with the monsters that don't tip, because how else are those poor servers going to survive? Basically, when you look at the price in a US menu, you have to remember that the real price is at least 130% of that. And somehow, americans seem to be fine with it, and consider that it's the foreigners that are the oddballs here.
Do note, I don't have a problem with tipping, and I do tip even in my country, quite generously so sometimes (e.g. 50% at barbershops because I feel their prices are just too low, and also the person providing the service is actually doing most of the work too). But I don't like being forced to do it. It's one thing to tip as a sign of "thank you, good job!"; and it's a completely different feeling to tip as "here, this will give you something to eat this month"
