Full title - Halloween PSA: New Jersey Division of Taxation will punish residents who use pumpkins for decorative purposes
LOL...from the comments...how about the pumpkins that get shoved up your *ss?
Assuming that the Division of Taxation is interpreting the law correctly (not always a safe assumption), how would you actually go about enforcing this?
I suspect many or the Division’s own employees do not voluntarily tell cashiers, “that pumpkin is decorative, you need to charge me sales tax.”
Stupid doesn’t even begin to cover this idiocy.
Pumpkin for eating = No sales tax.
Pumpkin for decoration = Sales tax.
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Sales clerk to customer, “Is this pumpkin for eating or for show?”
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New Jersey State 1040: “How many pumpkins did you not eat in 2019?”
Murphy needs to start grabbing money from every place possible since socialism is quite costly. Amazing how so many here complain till days end but the same old trash still gets elected.
Would someone on Twitter please tweet this to the president’s accounts?
Bet POTUS would have a field day with this...
For our house both. Seeds are eaten.
The comments are great!
Vaguely, I seem to recall the ‘60s in NY State when aspirin was in a similar situation. The clerk had to ask the reason for buying it. I THINK if was just to have on hand it was taxed. If it was for a specific current problem (”I have a headache”) it was tax free. Not sure if I’m remembering correctly.
Why, WHY, would anyone want to live in this God-forsaken suckhole where they tax decorative pumpkin sales?
Anybody in NJ who buys a pumpkin and says it's for decorative use, are dumber than the rest of the nation thinks you are already.
Everybody knows pumpkins are for making pies from and eating.
NOBODY buys pumpkins on Halloween for making jack-o-lanterns out of them.
If the NJ Dept. of Taxation doesn't back off this insane policy, NJ will be the laughing stock of the nation.
Someone let President Trump know about this fool idea and he will mock the NJ government for days.
There will have to be a declaration form at the supermarket cash register. And, if the pumpkin police find you haven’t used it for food later, and you can’t produce your signed receipt, you’ll be guilty of providing false information on a government form. Minor fine, but a black mark on your permanent record, so no guns for you.
Yeah, that’s the ticket.
Is this from the Onion or the Babylon Bee?
Do they tax the olive oil that gay guys use for lube?
Being on display embarrasses the pumpkins.
O—what if you eat the insides, but use the remainder for decoration?
How will they know if residents don’t use the pumpkins for food? I think the only way to charge the sales tax is if the pumpkins are made inedible before sale.
Or what about a picture of a pumpkin?
If there’s no sales tax on food then don’t tax the punkin. A punkin is food. Doesn’t matter if I eat it or not, it is food. So is yellow squash, that most vile and slimy plant that some consider food. Dry the punkin seeds in the oven. They are delicious.
See? This is the perfect example of why politicians suck.
I’m a Tax guy. I get this. I get the rationale and the law behind it. That said, this is completely, and utterly unenforceable. Yet they wasted time thinking about it and issuing a release.
Short of sending pumpkin patrols around to see who has a pumpkin on their porch, how would they know? And even if they actually PAID someone to do that, then what?
What if I leave the pumpkin out there until Halloween and then make a pie out of it? Is it still taxable?
Absolute pathetic farce.
This is what happens when a state is so in debt that they need to look at sucking every available penny from their residents. No idea, regardless of how stupid or impractical is off the table. I remember some years ago when the NJ government figured out that people were making untold billions of dollars (sarc) selling stuff at flea/antique markets. They promptly dispatched teams of tax collectors out to flea markets on SATURDAYS AND SUNDAYS ( can you say overtime) to make sure everyone set up had a registered, up to date NJ tax ID number and that they were collecting and reporting the sales tax income. I seriously doubt the income the state got from this effort exceeded the cost of sending personnel out to collect it. I would not be surprised if some NJ Division of Taxation employee got a bonus for the “fantastic” idea.