Miscellaneous News Thread

[scotchandcigar]

New Hampshire has no sales or income tax. Property tax rates are high, as is the meals tax, and they have high fees for car registration and other things. Voters have also shot down any income tax proposal. However, a large percentage of Southern NH residents work in Massachusetts, and pay their income tax.

 

[Channel98]

Many northern California residents go to Oregon to buy clothes, electronics, appliances and other high-cost items because they won't have to pay sales tax – but if they think they can save two or three thousand dollars in taxes by buying an automobile in Oregon, they're mistaken. When they register the car in California, they will have to pay the California use tax, even though they bought the car in Oregon. The use tax is equal to the sales tax.

If they think they can use the Oregon address of a friend or family member to register the car, they again are mistaken. In northern California, police and/or the DMV periodically investigate vehicles with Oregon license plates. If such a vehicle is used by a California resident with a California driver license, he can be cited for having an "unregistered vehicle" and will have to pay the use tax in addition to having to register the car in California. There is no escaping those taxes in California!

 

[HecticArt]

WHITE TRASH ALERT!!!!!

Every now and than I get a hankering for Shake and Bake chicken.
I was at the store tonight and thought it sounded like a good idea for dinner.

Shake and Bake no longer supplies the plastic bags to shake your chicken in!
.....um.....iew......but you know what I mean.
They say it's to reduce plastic waste, but we all know it's to save a penny a box.

BTW, it's still a yummy throwback to when I was 9 years old.
I'm set for another 6-10 months or so.

 

[sadchild]

In NH, we call Massachusetts "Taxachusetts" or "Taxyourassets" or "Taxyourassoff"

 

[scotchandcigar]

Many northern California residents go to Oregon to buy clothes, electronics, appliances and other high-cost items because they won't have to pay sales tax – but if they think they can save two or three thousand dollars in taxes by buying an automobile in Oregon, they're mistaken. When they register the car in California, they will have to pay the California use tax, even though they bought the car in Oregon. The use tax is equal to the sales tax.

If they think they can use the Oregon address of a friend or family member to register the car, they again are mistaken. In northern California, police and/or the DMV periodically investigate vehicles with Oregon license plates. If such a vehicle is used by a California resident with a California driver license, he can be cited for having an "unregistered vehicle" and will have to pay the use tax in addition to having to register the car in California. There is no escaping those taxes in California!

In NH, we call Massachusetts "Taxachusetts" or "Taxyourassets" or "Taxyourassoff"

You know how there's laws on the books that nobody follows? Well, one of them says that when a Massachusetts resident files their state income tax, they should list all the items they bought tax-free in NH, so they can pay Mass tax on them. Nobody does that.

However, a few years ago, there was a big case made about a tire store (Town Tire and Auto) in the border town of Salem NH; because many of the services they provided required them to record the vehicle's registration. The state of Massachusetts claimed that those records were proof of people skirting the law, and that they were going to require Mass residents to pay tax to Town Tire, who would then send it to Mass. I moved out of the area when all this was going on, so I didn't follow how it ended up.

But in an even stupider and more frustrating situation, we got royally screwed when we moved into a rental in Mass, while the house was being built. We were never required to pay sales tax on Mrs. Scotch's Toyota Tacoma, as it was registered in NH when we resided in NH, and NH has no sales tax. But the state of Mass required our sales documents, where it was revealed to them that it was purchased from a Mass car dealership. They made us retroactively pay sales tax on the truck, which was pretty fucked-up.

 

[MonoStereo]

WHITE TRASH ALERT!!!!!

Every now and than I get a hankering for Shake and Bake chicken.
I was at the store tonight and thought it sounded like a good idea for dinner.

Shake and Bake no longer supplies the plastic bags to shake your chicken in!
.....um.....iew......but you know what I mean.
They say it's to reduce plastic waste, but we all know it's to save a penny a box.

BTW, it's still a yummy throwback to when I was 9 years old.
I'm set for another 6-10 months or so.

Even though I was the perfect age for it, I don't think I ever had Shake 'n' Bake. Gawd knows I had plenty of other White Trash delicacies...the one off the top of my head that I'm still a sucker for is Pigs In A Blanket.

 

[scotchandcigar]

Even though I was the perfect age for it, I don't think I ever had Shake 'n' Bake.

As a kid, that was one of my mom's standard meals in her rotation. She had about a dozen things she'd make for dinner. But when she did shake n bake, she'd make boiled chicken for my dad. Because that's the kind of guy he was.

 

[Channel98]

La Cañada Flintridge, the snooty, almost-all-white city northeast of Glendale, has a sales tax rate of 9.5%. Only 1% goes directly to the city. On the March 5 ballot, residents will vote on a 0.75% increase which, if passed, will make the sales tax 10.25%, same as neighboring cities Glendale, Burbank, Alhambra, Pasadena and South Pasadena. The money raised from that increase will stay in La Cañada Flintridge. It amazes me that voters in so many cities keep approving so many tax increases. I have never yet heard anybody complain, "Our taxes aren't nearly high enough."

 

[scotchandcigar]

I've never lived in a "local sales tax" area. We have ballot issues, sometimes 10 pages of them. And it's divided into school budget bills, local district bills, and statewide bills.

Where I used to live in Southern NH, a lot of bills would get voted down. That's because most of the things that get approved have to be funded by property tax, as there's virtually no other revenue source. But sometimes, things like school renovations have to be approved, or the school loses certification. Or roads need fixing. Or we need police.

Where I live now, it's a resort town. We have lots of revenue sources, and people are building multi-million dollar vacation homes. So even when we approve most of the bills, our property taxes keep going down.

 

[Channel98]

The California sales tax rate is 7.25%. In Alpine County, home to 11 unincorporated communities in northeast California, the sales tax is 7.25%. Almost all the other cities and counties have imposed several tax increases (or dumb, gullible voters have approved them). The highest sales tax is 10.75% in Alameda, Albany, Hayward, Newark, San Leandro and Union City. Buy a $20,000 car there and you'll pay an extra $2,365 in sales tax!

 

[scotchandcigar]

I think we need to step back a little and look at the big picture. Taxes are how we pay for all the socialist things people take for granted; like schools, roads, police, libraries, public spaces.

If a new school needs to be built, the money has to come from somewhere; specifically from taxes. I could see that many people would favor raising the sales tax instead of raising the other taxes. Because sales taxes only affect the people with the wherewithal to buy expensive things.

I'm sure you're thinking they could just cut some budget, but I've dealt with town budgets for years, and it's like everything else. In the long run, it has to go up. Everyone expects a raise each year, costs go up each year. People accept that a day at Disney goes up each year, so they need to accept that their town budget goes up too.

 

[HecticArt]

That's the truth as I see it too Scotch.

Taxes do suck; but not as bad as failing bridges, bad roads, under-staffed and equipped fire & police, and on and on. I always vote for schools even though I don't have kids, because it still affects me in the long run. I need to not be surrounded by generations of dumb-asses that can't count my change at stores or are too stupid to hold jobs.

That said, we do need to be sure our tax money is being spent well and not being wasted.

 

[IdRatherBeSkiing]

That said, we do need to be sure our tax money is being spent well and not being wasted.

The sad part is that most governments will ignore the roads, schools, fire and police saying they have no money while wasting on stupid shit that is not really necessary. Local example: The City of Toronto is massively broke yet is finding billions of dollars to rename a street that was named after some Scottish Lord (Henry Dundas) who in 1800ish added an amendment to a slavery abolishion act to have it go into effect over time. The wackos say it delayed the end of slavery. The reality is that without that amendment the act would not have passed. All a matter of interpretation of past events with today's standards. And truth be told, nobody knew who Dundas even was prior to the kefufal but billions of $ they don't have is to be spent on it. I think they have scaled it back to a couple of subway stops and a square now but it think it is still hundreds of millions they don't have.

 

[sadchild]

billions of dollars to rename a street

BILLIONS?

 

[HecticArt]

Canadian dolours. It’s abouut $43.50 in real money.

 

[Channel98]

Johnson & Johnson had revenue of $85 billion in 2023; Pfizer had revenue of $58.5 billion; AbbVie, maker of Humira, had revenue of $54.3 billion; and Merck had revenue of $53.6 billion. Clearly that is not enough for them.

Pharma companies raise prices on over 900 drugs amid 'historic' negotiations

Drug companies raised prices on 910 name-brand drugs in January. The median price increase was 4.7%, the lowest increase in over a decade.

www.usatoday.com

 

[sadchild]

Wait, how does that work with this......?

DECEMBER 14, 2023

Today, President Biden will visit the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center in Bethesda, Maryland to announce that dozens of pharmaceutical companies will be required to pay rebates to Medicare for outrageous price hikes on prescription drugs that over 750,000 seniors take per year. For the last quarter of 2023, 48 Medicare Part B drugs raised their prices faster than inflation, and some drug companies raised prices of certain medications faster than inflation for every quarter over the last year. President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act cracks down on this exorbitant price gouging, requiring these companies to pay rebates back to Medicare, saving seniors who take these drugs between $1 and $2,786 per dose on their medication.

FACT SHEET: Biden-Harris Administration Announces Dozens of Pharma Companies Raised Prices Faster than Inflation, Triggering Medicare Rebates | The White House

President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act cracks down on Big Pharma price gouging, saving some seniors thousands of dollars per dose of medication

www.whitehouse.gov

 

[Channel98]

"We're raising prices on 910 drugs but we're not raising them as much as we could have. You're welcome."

I noted that Johnson & Johnson had revenue of $85 billion in 2023. How much of that was profit? Sixty-six billion dollars! That's more than 77%!

 

[sadchild]

 

[Channel98]

A "racket." Indeed it is. Did they (and the other pharmaceutical companies) need to raise prices? Nay, say I. Johnson & Johnson's market cap is $375,200,000,000. Shares of Johnson & Johnson are at $155.84 right now. Contrast that with SiriusXM's share price of $5.14. Of course Sirius XM doesn't manufacture life-saving drugs.