Not as "affordable" as I thought (Colo: how much, house)

[Jimrob1]

Originally Posted by fezzador

Correct. Along with Mississippi and maybe 3 or 4 other states, Alabama charges the full tax amount on all groceries and similar non-prepared goods, though thankfully prescription medications are exempt (though a couple of states DO tax prescribed meds).


Tennessee and Alaska are often cited as the least-burdened states, tax-wise. Neither state has an income tax at the state level, Alaska has no state sales tax (though individual municipalities may exercise one), and both have low to reasonable property tax rates. The downside to each state is that Tennessee does have a very high sales tax rate (comparable to Alabama) and Alaska has an unofficial "outside lower 48 states" tax, meaning that due to its general inaccessibility, just about everything costs 10-30% more from fuel and groceries to housing. The cost of living is more or less comparable to California or the general BosWash corridor.

I remember talking to this young couple that moved to Tennessee from Florida. They knew Tennessee had a Sales Tax, but evidently didn't know the tax was going to be on their grocery bill also. They said the first time they went grocery shopping in Knoxville, they nearly had a heart attack over the price of the grocery bill. When they looked at the receipt to figure out where they had been overcharged, and saw the amount of the sales tax on their food. I guess it hit them life wasn't going to be as cheap as they thought in Tennessee. I can only imagine if your use to your grocery bill not being taxed, that would be difficult to get use to. Especially if you have a family with the high price of food today, that grocery bill must be extremely high. Personally I don't think a grocery bill should be taxed other than non food items. Especially in states where there is high amount of lower income people. Food is a necessity to live.

[paiste13]

Am I super entitled or does anyone else not look at grocery prices? If I need milk i buy milk.

[duster1979]

Originally Posted by paiste13

Am I super entitled or does anyone else not look at grocery prices? If I need milk i buy milk.

I'm pretty much the same, although I will compare prices on the shelf while I'm shopping on some items. For instance, I don't drink milk, I just use it to cook, so I don't care if it's whole, skim, whatever, so I buy the least expensive thing they've got. I don't worry about the price at this store vs. that store, though, I just shop where it's most convenient.

I used to live in Illinois where they have a 1% grocery tax, but close to the Iowa border where there's no grocery tax. A lot of people would drive to Iowa to stock up on their groceries, but back then "stocking up" might mean spending $100 which would save them all of a dollar which didn't even cover the gas.

[GraniteStater]

Originally Posted by paiste13

Am I super entitled or does anyone else not look at grocery prices? If I need milk i buy milk.

It is a huge difference if you live in a state that doesn't tax grocery food items compared to ones that tax them at a full rate.

[DubbleT]

Meh, I've lived in two areas of TN that are at two different state lines- VA and MS. TN does tax food (not the full sales tax rate) but from personal experience we also have lower food prices than those bordering areas across state lines. Straight comparison, same chain with stores some twenty miles apart. I quit crossing borders in an attempt to lower my grocery bill as it never really worked out to any kind of savings. It basically comes out a wash. I've learned it's not as simple as 'oh look at the sales tax difference'.
If a sales tax on groceries is enough to put a major dent in your budget you need to be looking in depth at a whole lot of COL issues besides just taxes.

And yes, people of modest means most definitely look at grocery prices. I would consider it a luxury not to need to look at the price of milk or eggs.

[lthenderson]

Originally Posted by paiste13

Am I super entitled or does anyone else not look at grocery prices? If I need milk i buy milk.

I don't look at individual prices but I have noticed the increase of my total bill at the checkout stand.

[fezzador]

Around here, milk is pretty reasonable (about $2 a gallon at the local Wally World) but would cost a lot more if there wasn't an Aldi store within a 5 minute drive. Publix basically charges whatever it wants without fear of competition, but Walmart is definitely wary of Aldi and drastically lowered its milk prices. To me that says that Walmart and Aldi cater to different clientele than Publix or Whole Foods.

[Sculptor]

Originally Posted by chiluvr1228

Are you going to share where this small town is or are you afraid too many people will want to move there? :-)

How bad are the winters there?

NW Iowa is as shared as I get, definitely don't want more moving here, I like the town the way it is, when you get growth and new people moving in you get more problems.


Winter isnt bad, depends on the year, last winter we hardly got any snow at all, crazy

[Sculptor]

Originally Posted by duster1979

There never was a "loophole" that excused you from paying sales tax on mail order purchases; you were just responsible for reporting and paying the tax yourself, not that you or anybody else ever did.

The loophole was nobody charged it on mail order and nobody but fools reported their purchases, there's still loopholes I take free advantage of.
The crazy thing is the double taxation- you already PAID tax on that money when you earned it, now they tax it AGAIN when you do the only thing you can do with cash- SPEND it! that's double taxation.


I simply don't buy on any web site that adds it in and go elsewhere, the republicans made it so now every single business has to deal with the BS hassle of figuring, collecting, registering and often times paying a FEE to states to register to collect the tax for a state they have nothing to do with, and submitting taxes and fees for 48 different states, thousands of individual taxing counties and cities with their own local option tax rates, add-ons, and the insanity of where certain foods etc are taxed in one state and not in another!
And they are forced to be UNPAID govt shills collecting this for free, I bet a large number of them put the tax on and never submit it either, an instant 8% profit since for example- nobody in the state of Florida is going to audit the books of a small business in North Dakota to see how many sales they made to Florida.

[Sculptor]

[quote=Jimrob1;61465032Personally I don't think a grocery bill should be taxed other than non food items. Especially in states where there is high amount of lower income people. Food is a necessity to live. [/quote]


We can take that further- no utility bills should be taxed EITHER, nor should pet FOOD or veterinary medicines