Posted on 10/07/2006 1:14:09 AM PDT by HarmlessLovableFuzzball
Beginning this week, New Jersey residents purchasing music and videos from services like Apple's iTunes and rival digital downloads e-tailers encountered something they'd previously only found at bricks-and-mortar counterparts: a sales tax.
Democratic Governor Jon Corzine proposed the sales tax expansion earlier this spring to help the state to recover from a $4.5 billion budget deficit, an ABC News affiliate in New York reported recently on its Web site. The changes, along with a sales tax rate hike from 6 to 7 percent, took effect on Oct. 1.
According to a CNET News.com special report completed in April, 15 states and the District of Columbia already included media downloads in their sales tax regimes, and a handful of others--New Jersey included--were contemplating similar moves.
Garden State officials didn't stop at downloaded music and videos for the newly taxed set. New Jerseyans must now pay taxes on data processing; tanning, massage and tattooing services; limousines; and flooring and carpeting installation, among other things.
Thanks gridlock! I did forget about the tax sucking black hole we call the Public Education System.
Geez, no wonder NC is drifting left. You may as well stick around; all of the liberals that made NJ so miserable will be down in NC making that a left wing hellhole instead.
NJ, like many other sales-tax states (which is most of them), makes NO DISTINCTION between tangible gooods, and intangibles like services, or goods bought out of state. If you live in NJ, you must pay tax even on things you buy out-of-state: they are covered by an equivalent "use tax."
The idea is, that if you live here, you are like livestock owned by the state, and should be milked by your owners at their discretion. For this they pretend to educate your kids, and pretend to protect you against criminals. They also promise eventually to repair the roads someday.
It seems surrealistic, but when I was growing up here, NJ has no state sales tax, and no state income tax -- and yet the schools were better then than they are now. I am not hallucinating: that is the way it was. It would be nice if the electorate had a memory for history, because history gives us so many good examples of other ways of getting along, which are reasonable alternatives to the present system.
We here in NJ also have the MOST corrupt government since ancient Rome. They will tax the air when they find a way . Politicians in my area are triple dipping . Local small town cops are making $135,000 a year , my school district has 6 assistant supers of schools . all of who have 3 or 4 other titles (making a half million each ) it never ends here. The Dems are disgusting in NJ .
Tax government.
"The Dems are disgusting in NJ."
Hear, hear! I couldn't have said it better myself!
Take PA off your list. It's horrible here as well. Rendell looks like he will get another chance to lie and pilfer. I'm sure smokes will go up again and we'll never see a dime of property tax relief from gambling. He'll start taxing iTunes as soon as the November election is over. Clothes and newspapers won't be far behind.
If he's elected again, I don;t know what I'll do. In addition to the lack of property tax reform and ciggie taxes, I'm waiting for him to finish going after the guns.
Well, they have all their little pet programs that they just "can't live without!" So, they tax the hell out of us in order to keep face with "some" of their constituents!
Oh sure! The non-smokers keep telling us that it's a SIN tax! Well, guess what? Looks like everything we do in life is becoming a SIN to our lawmakers. Although it seems that lawmakers should be able to say and do anything they want and it's ok.
I think that tide is turning as well! Thank God! The Almighty Lawmakers! They suck!
You haven't lived in MAINE, have you?! ugh!
Democrats will suck $$$ from a rock. I hope every young person in this country will read and understand this: they will tax you on the sounds that waft through the air into your ears, and tell you they are your best friend at the same time!
I believe that. I have two family members who live in NJ. Their property taxes last year, respectively, were $11,000 and $24,000. Neither is rich. Then, there are state income taxes, sales taxes, and Turnpike tolls that would embarrass a highway robber. I don't honestly know why they put up with it.
I AM SOOOOOOOO GLAD My Family and I were sucessfully airlifted from that sewer in April of this year.
I am sooooo much happier in California....which while wacky, definitely has better weather.
My girlfriend works for the local Dem controlled government here in NJ ..You CANNOT believe the things she sees going on in govt here. In you face robbery of the public, corruption that would make Nero blush. The morons in NJ keep voting the DEMS BACK IN , DECADE AFTER DECADE.
My brother lives in Salem,NJ. The idiots there voted themselves in a property tax increase last year. His taxes are now about $6.000 a year. The politicians know the voters (Demorats) are fools and will believe anything. We are nothing more than a cash cow to them.
What the heck??? We just purchased a business in NJ and will be commuting there for the next year and a half from Kansas, where my son is a HS junior. My husband has a 1BR apartment in Morris Plains.
What are NJ Republicans doing???? How can they continuously lose elections in this state?? I understand unions, etc. but, I can't believe there aren't some regular folks there that would vote differently if the GOP message was packaged in the right way!!!
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