Is retail and department stores funded by the united stated tax dollar?

Answer 1

No. Retail and department stores are almost always private sector operations, owned by an individual ("a sole proprietorship"), a partnership, or a corporation. They get the money to run the operation either by growing from a small business through reinvesting earnings back into the business, by borrowing from a bank or other lender, or in the case of a corporation by selling shares of stock to investors, with each share of stock representing a fraction of ownership. For about forty years there has been a US government agency, the Small Business Administration, which sometimes makes loans to small businesses. Government tends to do things to help businesses, such as giving them tax breaks, or tax incentives to hire more workers. A few retail operations, such as the Post Exchange (PX) on military bases are run by the government, and items cost much less in those operations because the store need not worry about making a profit on each sale, the point of the operation being to offer goods to service members at a low price.