zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on May 7, 2015 11:36:29 GMT -5
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teen persuasion
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Post by teen persuasion on May 7, 2015 11:38:32 GMT -5
Lol, at you all looking for logic in state taxing mechanisms! My state sales tax exempts food, but not candy. So a jar of peanuts (unsalted, lightly salted or cocktail) is not taxed, but the same brand and size jar of honey roasted peanuts are taxed (classified as candy). And a jar of honey is not candy, so not taxed.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on May 7, 2015 11:58:18 GMT -5
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whoisjohngalt
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Post by whoisjohngalt on May 7, 2015 12:05:50 GMT -5
What about frozen foods? I never paid attention if that is taxed or not
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 7, 2015 12:19:05 GMT -5
No, not a sin tax. A meal service tax. If you buy a donut and coffee, for example, one assumes you are buying breakfast, for example... If you buy a dozen you are stocking up groceries. Is where the line seems to go.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on May 7, 2015 12:25:02 GMT -5
I'll have to remember that. What a great excuse!!
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Abby Normal
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Post by Abby Normal on May 7, 2015 12:41:34 GMT -5
Odd that you should post the donut issue. I was just reading the washington sales tax laws yesterday.
Sweet bakery items are exempt- Donuts, pies, cakes and pastries.
Savory bakery items are taxed- calzones, quiche, sandwiches.
If this was your 6 yr old - what would you have said? Government sucks!
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milee
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Post by milee on May 7, 2015 12:41:52 GMT -5
Move to Alabama where all groceries are taxed. Sales tax is currently 10% (includes county and city portion). And, yes, we have an income tax.
Apparently all food in Alabama is considered non-essential. Given that Alabama and Mississippi vie for the highest percent of obese people in the nation... maybe there's a good reason to have a high tax rate and discourage consumption.
At least the weight of the average resident indicates that the high tax rate isn't discouraging consumption.
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973beachbum
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Post by 973beachbum on May 7, 2015 12:58:29 GMT -5
No, not a sin tax. A meal service tax. If you buy a donut and coffee, for example, one assumes you are buying breakfast, for example... If you buy a dozen you are stocking up groceries. Is where the line seems to go. To complicate it more a lot of this actually depends on how it is labeled in by the store. At my PT job we actually had to read the laws for food stamps. It actually mentions that the Fed and NJ allows items that are "labeled" one way, but would not allow those exact same items if they were labeled another. So a donut has a label that specifically says "donut" to the computer and state, so it is taxes it unlike most food like in the OP. But a store made birthday cake would most probably just get a generic "bakery" label making it eligible for purchase with food stamps and sales tax exempt as if it was a generic loaf of bread. Items from the deli/seafood are the same. Hot prepared foods are not allowed on EBT and have sales tax. But grab a bag of frozen shrimp, or crab legs , from the freezer and hand it to the counter person to steam for you, and it is still labeled as frozen seafood. So that couple of pounds of steaming hot shrimp cooked with the spices you want isn't taxed or not allowed for food stamps, but the bargain store rotisserie chicken is.
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tskeeter
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Post by tskeeter on May 7, 2015 13:01:05 GMT -5
Move to Alabama where all groceries are taxed. Sales tax is currently 10% (includes county and city portion). And, yes, we have an income tax.
Apparently all food in Alabama is considered non-essential. Given that Alabama and Mississippi vie for the highest percent of obese people in the nation... maybe there's a good reason to have a high tax rate and discourage consumption.
At least the weight of the average resident indicates that the high tax rate isn't discouraging consumption.
Let's use tax policy some more to implement social policy! Tax em by the pound! Impose a per pound surtax on everyone whose BMI exceeds a threshold. Should be able to make this work by having everyone renew driver's licenses in person and doing a BMI check when they appear to renew their driver's license. If your BMI is too high, you have to pay an annual "fat tax" based on your last required BMI evaluation. This approach has the added benefit of being good for the environment, because, if people aren't as heavy, cars would consume less gas because they aren't hauling around a bunch of fatties any more. And, to avoid the fat tax, some people will try to reduce weight by walking to some places they would otherwise drive. Or they might ride a bicycle. If the car has less flab to haul around, or if tubbies stay out of cars all together and use more environmentally sensistive modes of transportation, there would be less fosil fuel emissions. That would be good for all of us. Tskeeter goes off to file his fat tax return.
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yogiii
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Post by yogiii on May 7, 2015 13:11:09 GMT -5
Why not just have the scale in the floor of the grocery line (mic drop)
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tskeeter
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Post by tskeeter on May 7, 2015 13:21:33 GMT -5
Why not just have the scale in the floor of the grocery line (mic drop) Connected to alarm bells, lights, and sirens? Sounds like fun. Ridicule the fatty day at Food Lion!
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yogiii
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Post by yogiii on May 7, 2015 13:35:43 GMT -5
Why not just have the scale in the floor of the grocery line (mic drop) Connected to alarm bells, lights, and sirens? Sounds like fun. Ridicule the fatty day at Food Lion! Just to be clear, it was a joke. I gave myself a mental pat on the back over the weekend. We were at the mall trying on shoes for my son and later he was talking about the girl who was sitting next to him (unfortunately she was probably about 10 and likely not just overweight but obese) and when he as describing her to me and asking me how old I thought she was, he did not say the words "fat or big". He just described her as "that girl sitting next to me, trying on shoes with a brown ponytail". I think it's nice that fat isn't in his vocabulary as a descriptor. I'm at least taking partial credit on that one.
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tskeeter
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Post by tskeeter on May 7, 2015 17:47:37 GMT -5
Connected to alarm bells, lights, and sirens? Sounds like fun. Ridicule the fatty day at Food Lion! Just to be clear, it was a joke. I gave myself a mental pat on the back over the weekend. We were at the mall trying on shoes for my son and later he was talking about the girl who was sitting next to him (unfortunately she was probably about 10 and likely not just overweight but obese) and when he as describing her to me and asking me how old I thought she was, he did not say the words "fat or big". He just described her as "that girl sitting next to me, trying on shoes with a brown ponytail". I think it's nice that fat isn't in his vocabulary as a descriptor. I'm at least taking partial credit on that one. I assumed your comments weren't serious. I'm on the train to Ridiculously Insensitive today.
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milee
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Post by milee on May 7, 2015 19:32:05 GMT -5
My comment was along the lines of how states are strange how they sort of incentivize and provide disincentive for certain things logically... but then do other things illogically. But that maybe none of that even matters since people don't always respond as expected to the tax incentives.
Not sure how that migrated to making fun of fat people?
But I'm also not sure that it's a good thing to teach a kid that being obese is anything other than a medical condition and issue. Is it really so awful to even say the word "fat" or "obese"? Not sure, but when I was a kid, I probably would have interpreted this idea - that banning the word "fat" from being spoken - indicates that "fat" or "obese" is such a horrible, shameful, awful thing that we can't even speak about it out loud. While it wouldn't be polite to discuss any sort of medical condition with the girl since that's a personal issue, the idea that the descriptor "obese" (which is a medical term) is banned from the vocabulary seems to make it somehow shameful or in the realm of so-awful-you-aren't-even-allowed-to-talk-about-it. While I'd teach my kids not to confront others with talk about medical issues, it wouldn't strike me as insensitive for them to mention the medical issue when describing the person. For example, if she had a scar under her eye, you wouldn't talk to her about her scar (a medical condition), but in describing her it would be a reasonable descriptor to mention the scar. To treat weight as different seems odd, and maybe even insulting because it's given a different treatment.
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ilovedolphins
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Post by ilovedolphins on May 7, 2015 23:24:49 GMT -5
We have a soda and candy tax here but I don't know where the money goes to that we collect.
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yogiii
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Post by yogiii on May 8, 2015 19:05:59 GMT -5
My comment was along the lines of how states are strange how they sort of incentivize and provide disincentive for certain things logically... but then do other things illogically. But that maybe none of that even matters since people don't always respond as expected to the tax incentives.
Not sure how that migrated to making fun of fat people?
But I'm also not sure that it's a good thing to teach a kid that being obese is anything other than a medical condition and issue. Is it really so awful to even say the word "fat" or "obese"? Not sure, but when I was a kid, I probably would have interpreted this idea - that banning the word "fat" from being spoken - indicates that "fat" or "obese" is such a horrible, shameful, awful thing that we can't even speak about it out loud. While it wouldn't be polite to discuss any sort of medical condition with the girl since that's a personal issue, the idea that the descriptor "obese" (which is a medical term) is banned from the vocabulary seems to make it somehow shameful or in the realm of so-awful-you-aren't-even-allowed-to-talk-about-it. While I'd teach my kids not to confront others with talk about medical issues, it wouldn't strike me as insensitive for them to mention the medical issue when describing the person. For example, if she had a scar under her eye, you wouldn't talk to her about her scar (a medical condition), but in describing her it would be a reasonable descriptor to mention the scar. To treat weight as different seems odd, and maybe even insulting because it's given a different treatment. No, I don't think the word fat should be banned but he's almost 5. I'm guessing at this age if he knows the word it's from adults around him using it or kids using it in a disrespectful way towards each other. Commenting on weight is definitely a "thing" of mine, so I may be more sensitive than most about it. One scenario in particular I recall is while I was talking to a guy at a BBQ. Two girls biked by us and he proclaimed "Is every kid in this neighborhood fat?". There were a few other kids around, shooting hoops and a couple others riding bikes. I don't think all of them were fat. The two girls on bikes in particular were not overweight, maybe a little chunky and about 12 or so, so in that crazy hormone stage. The girls themselves were likely self-conscious so I found if kind of shocking that a late 20's jackass had to comment on their size. I guess as a fellow thin person I was supposed to high 5 him about our superiority but it just really bothered me. Anyway, my son won't be innocent forever, but yes, it made me smile that he didn't use that word
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