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It looks like there are only 14 states that charge some sort of sales tax on basic food.

Five charge the full sales tax rate on basic food: Alabama, Kansas, Mississippi, Oklahoma and South Dakota
Six charge a reduced state sales tax rate on basic food: Arkansas, Illinois, Missouri, Tennessee, Utah and Virginia
Three others don't charge state sales tax on basic food... but allow local sales tax on basic food: Georgia, Louisianna and North Carolina

Only four states charge any sort of tax on prescription drugs: Delaware, Illinois (greatly reduced), New Hampshire and Oregon.

All data from a Federation of Tax Administrators PDF.

That's OK. Out here in California, the State that bleeds Blue and is perpetually Democrat dominated (unassailably so at the State level) has roads just as bad (the top four worst cities in the nation for example), has the highest gas tax in the nation ($0.713 per gallon), over $117 BILLION in backlog transportation work, the highest State income tax, and a $777 BILLION State debt.

Michigan is a rank amateur when it comes to fiscal mismanagement and high taxes...

OECD provided graph? ! for 2005 as well. Graph that doesn't include State taxes.

Here is a better source.

This again, does not include State income taxes.

Here they are

If you are making over say $10,000,000/year, you'll pay marginal tax rate on 99% of your income, so that's 35% + SS + payroll + Medicare + State. State taxes vary and in some cases they are 0, which is why people move to Texas or Florida out of places like Connecticut or Illinois for example.

Of-course the other taxes will also add up, like property, sales, gas, etc.

Yes, try something closer to 50,000 tax rates once you factor in county/municipal/local sales taxes

And it gets even worse: many states have "tax holidays" that only last for one or two weekends.

In my state, there are "back to school" sales tax holidays a 3-day weekend in August. Typical school supplies are exempted, but some clothes are also exempted, as long as the purchase price doesn't exceed a certain threshold.

2010 State Sales Tax Holidays

Note that at least one of those is "discretionary": the state has to decide each year whether to do so.

http://www.taxadmin.org/fta/sendmail.taf?F_name=verenda now we can all send a nice, calm email telling her she's a complete govermnent asshat.

Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it.

You are scaremongering. You are pathetic, and I no longer care what you have to say.

Suit yourself.. If you would like to peek at recent history where we decided something else was bad and taxed it to discourage it's use, look no further than the tax on a 35 cent pack of cigarettes.
http://www.taxadmin.org/FTA/rate/cigarett.html
http://tobaccofreekids.org/reports/prices/

Higher carbon tax on coal will discourage use and put pressure on other energy resources. Seen the price of corn and corn products lately?

Again, those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it.
and I no longer care what you have to say.
Ignoring it won't make it go away.

We europeans pay around 700-900 USD for the PS3

The highest US tax bracket is 35%, before deductions.

And of course there are no taxes in the US besides federal income tax. (Hint: Look at the top tax bracket in, say, California or Vermont.)

not entirely sure, but it looks like it's.
(Note the .ORG in the url?)

http://www.taxadmin.org/ -- Last Updated February 12, 2007

Federation of Tax Administrators
444 N. Capitol Street, NW, Suite 348, Washington, DC, 20001 (202) 624-5890

At least in Germany (or in the rest of the world for that matter), the sales tax is part of the price of the item.
When you travel in the US you never know how much it is until you pay. And if you ask beforehand how much the local tax is, they give you nasty looks like you were insulting their dear mothers.
It's a completely braindead system.

It's rather interesting. Bars in Canada add sales tax, where every bar I've been to in the US, tax is included. Fuel tax is included with the price. It would be nice if the price advertised included tax.

On the plus side, I live in washington which has no state income tax, but a sales tax that floats between 8% and 9% depending on the city, and food has no sales tax. Generally thinking 10% for most states is a good rule of thumb.

But odds are... your average worker doesn't know what the sales tax is.

http://www.taxadmin.org/FTA/rate/sales.html

The UK owns the bleeding edge of stupid shit that wastes taxpayer money.

One could class the US military in that category.

One could class the UK military in the same category as well. After all, there are UK troops in Iraq and in Afghanistan.

Much more to the point, if the US government is wasting money badly, why are the US income tax rates and US sales tax rates lower than the UK income tax rates and UK VAT rates? And I don't mean just a little lower: if you don't want to follow those links, UK income tax is 10-40% vs. 10-35% in the US (depending on bracket/band), and VAT in the UK is 17.5% in most cases, whereas sales tax in the US usually falls between 5% and 8%, depending on state and local laws.

Basically what I'm saying is, the proof of the pudding is in the tasting, and if the UK is not better at wasting money, why are the taxes higher?

Um, there are no state sales tax in the US of 8-9%. See http://www.taxadmin.org/FTA/rate/sales.html for more details. Many states have 0% sales tax.

Seems like sales tax is a lot different than European VATs which are more hidden from the taxpayer, so probably can be a lot bigger.

Here is are the State tax rates in the US:

http://www.taxadmin.org/fta/rate/sales.html

Generally, between 4-6% and there is no National Sales tax... at least yet. There has been some talk recently about creating one. But nobody was too happy about the idea.

Here is a list of states and their sales tax policies on food. Those without an asterisk tax the sales of food. As for clothing, I do know that Pennsylvania does not have a sales tax on clothing. I don't know of any other state that does not tax clothing, but I am sure that there are others.

But, who can afford to create savings accounts in a high sales-tax state? Remember, regressive taxation means poor people pay a higher percentage in taxes than wealthy. If the poor are paying a higher percentage of taxes, that means they have less money to put into saving accounts. So, the wealthier will be able to save more, but the poor will still be without a savings account.

The only way to really know if this is true is to keep track of your sales taxes expenditures and compare it to what you probably would pay in Oregon income taxes (I am NOT including California, because you probably would pay higher taxes there). As I understand it, the Feds now give a deduction on estimated sales tax expenditures. You could use the Feds tool to estimate your sales tax expenditures in WA, but there is a chance of error (don't forget to include OR deductions when you estimate OR taxes).

My beef is if I sell something that can be delivered over the net, I now need to figure out what/if/how I have to tax the customer. Hard for a one guy and his dog style operations.

Pretty much every ecommerce package calculates tax. It is not difficult to find state sales tax rates.

These expenses ultimately go against the tax base that Microsoft would be paying. True Microsoft does suffer some, but the tax payer picks up a large chunk in lost revenue from corporate income tax. The legal fees (e.g. money spent for lawyers) can also be written off in one way or another.

Additionally, payment in kind can sometimes be accepted for these types of law suits. This means that a few hundred dollars worth of plastic can actually be expensed for several million dollars because it contains software on it.

Here is a good site for tax information: http://www.taxadmin.org/

I assume your $0.80 number comes from somewhere like so. Let's see... at $0.35 per pack in NC, and $1.50 in NY, that should equate to a difference of $11.50 a carton... Well, Marlboros run about $30 a carton in NC, while in NY they're closer to $70. That's difference of $40 a carton, or about 350% higher than your magic numbers show. You're obviously overlooking a staggering amount of tax. You also assume all smokers die from smoking related disease and that all smokers die after 30 years of smoking. It looks like someone is twisting the truth.

Well who would have guessed that someone as clever as you would smoke?

To be so clever yourself, you seem to overlook a lot of facts.

My original point remains the same: Berating smokers is rude. It's the equivalent of approaching someone walking their dog and professing how much you hate dogs. Learn some manners. I stand by my original statements. You are a troll. The topic is not cigarettes, it is NASA. No one mentioned cigarettes but you. You obviously would like to argue about cigarettes. Stop acting like a child or take your personal problems elsewhere. I will not argue with you any further.

Touring musical acts do in fact have to pay taxes under the various state rules they perform in.

However, since no state charges 10-20% state income tax (see http://www.taxadmin.org/fta/rate/ind_inc.html), most of them don't have such stringent rules, and those that do offer deductions based on taxes paid in other states, your characterization of 200-400% tax rate is ludicrous.

NY has one of the highest state tax brackets (in fact, I think it might be the highest)

Not to be nitpicky but Montana's is higher... see here. However, if you are an NYC resident and add that to the NYS rate, yeah it's higher than the rest of the US.

-Mike

TN taxes are 0 if I recall.... Oh wait here we go there are only taxes on Dividends and interest only. -Mike

http://www.taxadmin.org/fta/rate/sales.html
Check it out; in half the states, food items are exempt from sales tax. (A good choice.)

OK, I learned some math. Here's a little math lesson.

Inelastic goods tend to have a lump sum, or flat tax (as opposed to a flat rate tax). Cigarettes, in every state in the US, are taxed by the pack. And guess what, gasoline? Taxed by the gallon And holy crap, look at this, I'm looking at my SBC local phone bill right now, and the tax is charged by the line. A portion of my long distance tax charges is actually done as a percentage, but guess what, they're changing that to a flat rate, too. And hang on, I've got my Adelphia broadband bill here, and it's got a flat rate monthly tax too!

So in your example, where they sell twice as much at 1/3 the price, tax revenue would be exactly... twice as much. So I'm looking forward to the second insallment of your math lesson where you contue to explain how I'm such an idiot for thinking that if people buy more of these things, the tax revenue will increase, and enlighten me as to how it will "definitely be less." Of course, without knowing the supply and demand curves, you can't know if it would be more or less even if it were a percentage tax, and in almost all cases, you're wrong, because total sales almost always increase when prices drop. But that's another story.

So, instead of spending $50 on a private ISP, if they spend $25 of their taxes on "free" government service

Try supposing it's $100 for the government's service, and that it ends up going out all the time, being a fifth the speed of the $50 private service, and if you think tech support is lousy these days, imagine having to drive somewhere and stand in line for 5 hours just to have them tell you they don't care and won't help.

According to IDC, 5 million americans have a wifi card now. That's about 1.6% of the population. Of course, not all of those are 802.11 b to work with these networks, but let's round up in the government's favor. Philadelpia, the first US city to try this, has a population of about 1.5 million. Philadelpia's spending $10 million on setup and expects operating costs of $1.5 million. Thus, if Philadelphians own wireless cards at about an average rate, then about 24,000 of them have cards. So for the first year, they're spending $458 of tax money per resident who could even possibly try to make use of the service. Of course, this is just to put one wireless hub on each block; what pecent of people do you think could actually get service without leaving thier home? Our 802.11 hub only reaches some rooms in our house, and it's base station is right here. The people installing the networks admit that the base stations only reach about 100 feet, and that's when they aren't going through brick walls. So I wouldn't be surprised if their first year cost is closer to $4,000 per regular user. But other people will be paying that money, instead of them paying $50 for their own access, so it's good, right? Of course, more people will buy 802.11 cards in the future if there's "free" broadband available, so the numbers should improve, if the government can keep program costs under control.

Just out of curiosity, do you think those 24,000 out of 1,500,000 who have computers with 802.11 are among the poor? How many do you think have incomes at least two standard deviations above the mean? You do realize this is a tax on everyone, including the poor, to provide services overwhelmingly consumed by the rich, so they don't have to pay the fee themselves?

"So, instead of spending $50 on a private ISP, if they spend $25 of their taxes on "free" government service, they would have mo

Judging by the effects in the Prohibition Era on alcohol prices, and the price differences between crack vs. powder cocaine, yes. Were cocaine legal, it would be noticably cheaper-- leaving out taxation effects after legalization.

Of course, the legalization debate hinges on more than just prices.

In terms of taxes, Californians aren't taxed any more, on average then the rest of the country.

State income tax rates

At 9.3 for the high bracket (that has a low threshold of $27k) I'd say California is on the higher end of income taxes, with most other states being in the 5-6% range. For those of us in the LA/SF/SD metro regions we also have way higher than average housing prices and the associated property taxes that accompany those (for the prop. owners). I recently exited the property market here when the economy tanked (and the work dried up) and am looking out of state now for a move. I was born here, so, it's kind of a bummer, but I look forward to new ventures elsewhere. I'm also planning a service business and I don't want to be stifled by the outrageous workers compensation insurance rates in CA.

Current sales tax overview by state.

I can not find any single site with good historical data, but here are a few histories by state:

• Idaho
• Maine
• Texas

(Besides, the difference isn't that much. IIRC, UK VAT is 17.5% and US sales tax is up to 9%).

Read it and weep.

Although citizens naturally prefer low-tax regimes, sometimes it's just silly: look at California's budget to see what "low tax at any price" does

Calforina is in the top 10 of highest state corperate income taxes, and the highest bank income tax in the country at a whopping 10.84%

Calafornia has the highest state sales tax rate of 7.25% And that doesn't include California's car taxes, properity taxes, and don't forget local sales taxes etc. Also don't forget Federal Social Security, Medicare, and income taxes you have to pay too, or get deducted from your pay check.

California's budget problems arose from Davis' favors to his campaign donors, the number of social programs, the number of illegal immigrants that tap those social programs, and the general hostility to business on the left coast. Also the downturn in the ecnomy and the fact the dot com bubble was built and bursted.

I mean what do you want, to pay 70% of your income to the state? And California's policies are low tax?

Next time know what the hell your talking about. Not all figures from: http://www.taxadmin.org/fta/rate/tax_stru.html

no, i was wrong.
Here is a list of states and their sales tax (or lack thereof).

- State sales tax is nowhere near 10%. In Los Angeles County it's 8.25% and I think ours is the highest. At least 1.5% of that is county tax. State sales tax is 6.something percent. That's closer to 5% than 10%.

- If state income tax was 10%, I would have owed another $6370.70 last year when I sold a house. I paid 7.77% in the highest possible tax bracket.

http://www.taxadmin.org/fta/rate/sales.html

I live in Oregon, so I'm used to some pretty boneheaded ideas but this one takes the cake. Fortunately it runs afoul of a little thing called the 4th Amendment. While the state is in dire financial straits--so bad that a 4-day school week was investigated as a cost cutting measure--a much more obvious fix to the budget crisis than this moronic measure would be to readjust our income tax. Oregon has a defecto flat-tax as the brackets haven't been readjusted since the 30's. A flat tax is naturally a recipe for ruin because in order to pay for things like roads and schools the tax has to be set quite high which means the working poor and middle class have less disposable income to put back into the economy.

I'll even refine it further:

> salary => 60k/year => 5000/month
OK

> tax (say 25%) => 1250/month
that is conservative

Uh, it's just wrong.

Federal tax rate for individual making $60,000 per year: 27.5% (Better not make $65,551, rate jumps to 30.5%) (Source: You can find it anywhere.)
Federal social security tax: 6.2% (Source, anywhere)
Federal medicare tax: 1.45%
Total tax rate, federal: 35.15%

Federal tax, monthly, at above salary: $1757.50

Tax rate for Californian making over $37,725 per year: 9.3% (Source: here)
Tax rate for Illinosian (?): 3% (Flat)(Source: here)

State tax for someone living in the bay area, monthly, at above salary: $465
State tax for someone living in Illinois, same: $150

Total tax, monthly, for Californian at above wage: $2222.50
Total tax, monthly, for Illinoisian at above wage: $1907.50

> rental => 1500/month
sounds a bit high, but maybe not in the Bay area

If you're living alone, this is about right for anywhere except the bay area. If in bay area, this is high, however most folks in bay have roomies. A little low.

> grocery/food => 600/month
150/wk != dining out

This seems a little high to me. But then technical folks do tend to eat out more, being forced to keep hours where they don't have much choice. I spend at least this much, I guess.

> Utilities (phone, power, etc) => 100/month
way low - I would double this

Uh, more like triple out here. Internet = $100 per month for broadband, cable is $30, phone is $50, power + gas is at least $100, water/sewer/garbage another $20 or so...

> car (gas, insurance) => 150/month
that almost covers my insurance, doesn't do a thing for the gas

and what about a car payment?

My insurance is $120 a month, and I'm in a LOW bracket. And you're right, this doesn't cover a car payment.

total costs => 3600/month

No longer accurate, once you fix the tax rate and include things like car payment.

I'll even refine it further:

> salary => 60k/year => 5000/month
OK

> tax (say 25%) => 1250/month
that is conservative

Uh, it's just wrong.

Federal tax rate for individual making $60,000 per year: 27.5% (Better not make $65,551, rate jumps to 30.5%) (Source: You can find it anywhere.)
Federal social security tax: 6.2% (Source, anywhere)
Federal medicare tax: 1.45%
Total tax rate, federal: 35.15%

Federal tax, monthly, at above salary: $1757.50

Tax rate for Californian making over $37,725 per year: 9.3% (Source: here)
Tax rate for Illinosian (?): 3% (Flat)(Source: here)

State tax for someone living in the bay area, monthly, at above salary: $465
State tax for someone living in Illinois, same: $150

Total tax, monthly, for Californian at above wage: $2222.50
Total tax, monthly, for Illinoisian at above wage: $1907.50

> rental => 1500/month
sounds a bit high, but maybe not in the Bay area

If you're living alone, this is about right for anywhere except the bay area. If in bay area, this is high, however most folks in bay have roomies. A little low.

> grocery/food => 600/month
150/wk != dining out

This seems a little high to me. But then technical folks do tend to eat out more, being forced to keep hours where they don't have much choice. I spend at least this much, I guess.

> Utilities (phone, power, etc) => 100/month
way low - I would double this

Uh, more like triple out here. Internet = $100 per month for broadband, cable is $30, phone is $50, power + gas is at least $100, water/sewer/garbage another $20 or so...

> car (gas, insurance) => 150/month
that almost covers my insurance, doesn't do a thing for the gas

and what about a car payment?

My insurance is $120 a month, and I'm in a LOW bracket. And you're right, this doesn't cover a car payment.

total costs => 3600/month

No longer accurate, once you fix the tax rate and include things like car payment.

Do realize that sales tax goes to the state, not the federal government. Even that does not all go to the state, the counties also add on to the local sales tax. That is why, while the state sales tax for Tennessee is $0.06, most people pay $0.0825 to $0.0875 in sales tax. So taking money from sales tax would be taking money from the state's cash cow, not gonna happen.

You pay taxes on Milk? I'm guessing from your homepage you live in either SF or New Jersey, neither of which pay sales tax on food.

But back to the real issue, paying a "media" tax for a general purpose storage device, which may or may not store copyrighted media, doesn't sound like a very good idea.

And the reverse engineering/copyright issues are even more dangerous. A lot of people learn by reverse engineering whatever it is they're interested in. I seriously believe we're going to reduce innovation because of laws such as this.

Josh

Why? Because when it looked like diesel cars would get popular a few decades ago, taxes were raised on it so that those people who conserved energy using diesel passenger cars would'nt get any tax benefit from it! I kid you not.

You see, the environmentalist organizations don't really give a damn whether or not resources are conserved or CO2 emissions reduced. No, they want to see people suffer. Until they see people's lives being screwed up, these busibodies don't feel they've done enough to force other people to do enough. How dare people presume that they deserve to be comfortable, for goodness sake!

No, this isn't trying to be flamebait. Over and over, the agenda is given away when environmental radicals, with perfectly straight faces, respond to proposals for gathering energy from sources as clean as geothermal plants with whining that supplying more energy will just keep people from "conserving energy" as they should instead, totally missing the point that the idea is to conserve the resources used in producing the amount of energy needed by society.

Instead it's conserveconserveconserve to reduce the level of comfort and prosperity people should be allowed to enjoy - can't allow them to maintain the same lifestyle simply by using resources more wisely. It's never enough to replace that 75 watt lightbulb with a 15 watt florescent that puts out the same illumination - nope, to properly conserve you have to go to a 5-watt one and squint trying to read in proper uncomfortable twilight.

The basic idea is that sellers who sell interstate will be required to use a commercial "tax service provider" who takes in the shipping address, computes the tax rate to be applied, collects payments from the seller, and sends appropriate amounts out to the appropriate state and local taxing authorities. This makes interstate sales taxes for online sales practical.

No sign yet of a protocol spec for transactions with the tax service provider.

In this debate, it's important to note that even i f you don't pay tax on a out-of-state purchase, AFAIK every state with a sales tax still says that you are supposed to pay them something called a use tax; they just can't force the company to collect.

Do I owe Texas tax on mail-order merchandise?

Yes, tax is due on items purchased out of state and used in Texas. If the mail-order company has a Texas use tax permit, the company will collect Texas tax. And Texas use tax is due even if the mail-order company doesn't have a permit and doesn't collect tax.

A white paper at CommerceNet gives extensive information on the California law, and mentions that this is pretty common. For the curious, here is a table of State Sales Tax Rates, which mentions that Alaska, Deleware, Montana, New Hampshire, and Orgeon have no state sales tax.

<opinion>

Personally, I favor raising the sales tax and dropping the income tax. As a general rule of thumb, taxing something tends to discourage it (e.g., cigarette tax), so it seems silly to tax something like income. I'd much rather tax consumption, and I'm even more interested in taxing things that are environmentally bad. If society is going to allow pollution, we might as well get paid for it.

</opinion>

Fewer and fewer americans pay taxes, and they're the richest part of America.

I think you need to adjust your meds again!...

Pitty the oppressed wealthy of America! They get such a raw deal (that's why they are all flocking overseas)...

Am I paraphrasing you correctly, or did you write what you meant to say? If you mean what you have written, then you are out of touch with reality.

Turn off Rush Limbaugh, take a walk in the fresh air and then check your facts.

I just hope the people who moderated you up did it out of appreciation for the artisitic quality of your fiction--It's disturbing to think that more than four people share this delusion.

Census tax data

Census income data

State income & tax data

For those of you who don't like reality, please on your meds and don't play with firearms!