Posted on 02/28/2011 11:42:57 AM PST by raybbr
HARTFORD (AP) — Devotees of coupons and discounts are angry at Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's proposal to slap a new sales tax on the original price of a good or service rather than the discounted price.
Ending the sales tax exemptions for coupons, discounts and automobile trade-ins are among tax exemptions Malloy has proposed ending to help close the state's projected $3.5 billion deficit. For example, the tax would be imposed on the $30 price of a blouse, not the $15 sales price.
Gina Juliano learned firsthand after she lost her job in 2009 as a vice principal in the Hartford Public Schools that coupons and sales can help a family make ends meet. She cut her budget for food, toiletries, pet supplies and paper goods from between $200 and $300 a week to $50. [Sample Our Free Connecticut Business Midday Newsletter]
"I turned to coupons because I would have had to lose my house and everything. I wouldn't have been able to survive," said Juliano, who now writes a blog in Connecticut called Gina's Kokopelli that tracks coupons, sales and bargains for other shoppers.
Like many avid couponers, Juliano pays little or nothing for items after matching coupons with sales. For example, she recently used a $3 coupon to buy a bottle of Gain fabric softener that was on sale for $2.99 at Rite Aid.
(Excerpt) Read more at courant.com ...
Good. Glad to hear it SandRat.
Can hardly wait to hear my Uber Lib Broters respone to this. Think he’ll sing a non-Lib tune after he talks to his wife & his Daughter.
Taxing people on money they never spent. What a racket.
Well, I could flip the question around and ask you why I should be taxed on money I never spent, after all, that is what a sales tax is, isn't it? A fee charged by the government on the total dollar amount collected for goods and/or services provided. If, because of my coupons, I hand over $10.00 cash to your $15.00, why should i pay a tax on money that was never collected from the merchant by me?
This is one of the more insane plans I’ve heard proposed. I hope it doesn’t come to CA.
Couponing ping
The article doesn't say one way or the other, but will food now be taxed in CT? It wasn't in the past unless it was considered "junk food". If so, this goes way beyond the coupon thing.
I'm so disgusted by this state, we continually elect hard core progressives, and some in this state even consider Lieberman a conservative for God's sake.
This new budget proposed by Malloy goes 180 degrees against the trend in the rest of the country. Even NY and NJ are starting to get it, but not CT. To paraphrase Davy Crockett, The state of CT can go to hell, I'm moving to Texas.
>>The state of CT can go to hell, I’m moving to Texas.
If I didn’t own a house, I’d have packed my bags already. Businesses and people are going to leave in droves. We’re making RI look sane, which is saying something.
I wouldn't bet the ranch on that one. CT in some ways makes MA look conservative. We had Chris "Countrywide" Dodd in there for years, when he was found to be a crook we promptly elected an even bigger progressive with Dick Blumenthal, who as AG never met a company he didn't want to sue.
He may... ;^)
I agree. And to think CT as a colony was founded by Puritans from the Mass Bay Colony because they thought people there were getting too lenient.
Well,they could require the manufacturer to pay the sales tax to the store for the money the store collects from them for the coupon.
I mean, that would be rather unworkable, and I’m guessing it would change the value of coupons the manufacturer was willing to provide.
I think my distinction was that if a store and a customer decide on the price of an item, THAT is the value of the item, and is what should be taxed.
But if there is a 3rd-party payer who is helping cover the cost of the item, it makes more sense that the government would tax that true cost of the item, not just the reduced cost after the other costs are covered by the 3rd party.
If the person behind you in line gave $10 to help you pay for your purchase, you wouldn’t argue that you should pay $10 worth less of sales tax because YOU didn’t spend the money yourself; you’d expect the total sales tax to remain the same. Coupons are somewhat like that other person paying for part of your purchases, rather than the store reducing your price.
Of course, that is only sometimes true; the stores also have coupons which reduce your price. But they aren’t much different than the store issuing you loyalty dollars like Walgreens — I’m pretty sure that if you buy things using your register bucks (or whatever they are called) you still pay tax on the purchase price, even though the store actually paid for your purchase with the fake money.
I know poeple dislike taxes; I dislike high taxes, but understand that government does need to collect money for the services it provides. I think deciding to tax the PRICE of an item, rather than deducting the value of coupons, is a rational choice to make, one that will make the tax “more fair” because it will be applied more evenly across the citizens of the state.
But taxing a manufacturer’s “retail price” rather than the actual price the store sells the item for seems quite different to me. Why not simply raise the tax rate, rather than set an artificial price? (It’s like those states that collect property tax, and you know that they game the “value” of the house along with the “tax rate”, because all that matters is the total collected, not the rate, or what they say your house is worth).
I don’t live in Connecticutt, and in the end the voters of that state can decide if they like this way of being taxed or not, and can inform their representatives accordingly.
LOL!
Okay Gov, is this your bright idea or should the credit go to one of our state’s fine, out of touch, union members? Do you hear that? It’s the sound of property values plummeting further.
Good luck selling your home to get out of this stinkhole state.
Malloy won narrowly, after the corrupt Dem stinkhole of Bridgeport CT had ballot “recounts”.
Kind of like what they do in Chicago.
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