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Our Vice President says that paying taxes is patriotic. Toast your buns, get your coffee for here and feed the Tree of Liberty!
3 replies
Our Vice President says that paying taxes is patriotic. Toast your buns, get your coffee for here and feed the Tree of Liberty!
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Ohio has the same 'For here or to go' tax... Stay and pay, Go and save dough.
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This system is all over the UK. When I was there they made a point to mention that if we got things like our fastfood to go we didnt have to pay tax on service...
@chris101d: Food in the UK doesn't have VAT for the most part, and that includes food you are served. You've been misinformed.
You don't have to tip in a restaurant if you get your food to-go, but you never tip for fast food.
Similarly, if you're at a restaurant with a bar, you'll be charged sales tax if you order an alcoholic drink served at your table, but if you walk to the bar to buy it there, you won't be.
One of the McDonald's in my town charges a twenty-five cent \" eat-in tax\" which wouldn't be that big of a deal except it is Disgusting to eat in that place. The bathrooms are always so dirty that the whole place smells, in the winter they don't turn on the heat and no a/c in the summer. I think they mop the floor like once a month, if that. It's the worst. I just avoid it all together.
@ScarletBegonias: if it's as bad as you're saying, I'd hesitate to get anything to go or at the drive thru either...ewww
What about if you get a flatbread sandwich, where it is supposed to be toasted by default?
In CA there is no tax on \"groceries\" but there is a tax on \"prepared food.\" Somehow, when a sandwich is prepared but still cold and not to be consumed on-site it becomes a grocery item and exempt from the prepared food tax. Sandwiches are so much better toasted I think it's easily worth the extra 46 cents regardless if it's going into Subway's coffers or those of the local municipalities.
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@snclfe: Thats weird. We have the same tax for food.
\"Domestic consumption\" vs \"prepared food\". We don't change it for toasted vs untoasted or coffee in a store or out.
The closest we'd get to that is a starbucks in a grocery store could theoretically charge tax on the whole bean coffee they sell where as if you bought it in the coffee isle it would be exempt.
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@snclfe: Thanks for the clarification. I wasn't sure if it was a tax law or just that Subway's including the sales tax in the price.
@snclfe: I was going to come and clear this up, though you beat me to it. I don't think this is a crazy tax, it is just a basic loophole.
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@adambadam: Thanks for clearing this up for an California people that haven't realized they are being taxed for toasting. I noticed this the other day at Subway. I'm now taking it to-go and untoasted permanently. Unless you really are eating it in the store, your sandwich can get kind of gluey and sweaty if you toast it and take it any distance.
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Just give me the damn sandwich raw, and I'll toast myself on the engine block.
Power to the people!
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New York state has sort of the same issue with food stamps - at Wegmans, if you order a regular sub, you can use food stamps, but if you order a \"hot\" one (meatball, chicken finger, etc), you cannot use food stamps. Also, if you choose to eat in, you must be charged sales tax on anything you are eating there, like a restaurant, so your apple could be taxed.
Hahahaha... I always got a kick out of the \"for here/to go\" tax. At the Coffee Bean near my house, they always try and help steer you towards the right answer and say \"that's to-go, right?\" rather than \"for here or to-go?\". For the longest time I didn't understand why they did that and I thought it was a subtle hint they wanted me to leave!
100% true, its a major pain as well as individual counties have different definitions of 'here' or to 'go'. It also applies to 'prepared' food... again different counties have different definitions of what that means... a bagel toasted in a coffee shop with less than X% of seating available for X amount of transactions a day, but the bagel shop that sells bagels primarily with even less available seating taxes on every bagel as they consider it 'prepared'...
...and there's even more..
for example, in one county if you buy a granola bar in a coffee shop it is taxed as it is a 'snack' food, yet right across the street in a grocery store, its considered a food food.
oh its soooo confusing, especially from a tech support standpoint...
NJ has/had some similar wacky laws. Anything w/bubbles in it was taxed, vs/ no bubbles tax free. I think they just changed the law to add tax to \"refrigerated\" liquid drinks, vs. no tax for room temp. We also have the hot cold law as well, and the difference was explained to me as the preparation makes it stop being a \"grocery\" item. I loved my few months in scanning consulting the Big PDF O' Taxable Items for NJ. IIRC, Periodicals used to be tax free in NJ, but if it was a \"special issue\", it was taxed as well.
@TheTriStatesBestSide_GitEmSteveDave: Semantically, its carbonated (Coke, soda, etc) vs. not carbonated (Ice Tea, Green Tea, Poweraid [I think on the poweraid). And besides, refrigerated drinks where already \"taxed\". Cold drinks are for basically for immediate consumption, and hence not counted as groceries, aside from the whole convenience tax of being cold/\"energy\" costs factored in.
@silver-bolt: @GitEmSteveDave:WalkinOnSunshine: Not quite. What they did in New Jersey was they redefined the tax on soft drinks. It used to be that a soft drink was a carbonated beverage. Now a soft drink is defined as a sweetened beverage, provided that it doesn't have any dairy in it and isn't at least 51% juice.
They also redefined candy to say that if it required refrigeration or contained flour, it's not candy and is tax-exempt. Why do you think I always give out Kit Kat/Twix/100 Grand/Take 5/Twizzlers for Halloween each year?
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Restaurants still pay the \"for here\" tax, even if you order it to go, but stay and eat.
The government calculates a percentage of customers that are likely to eat in and charges the company that tax whether or not they've actually collected it. You probably won't care about making a large corporation pay the tax, but keep in mind that small family owned restaurants pay the tax as well, and it can be pretty hefty. Don't cheat small businesses (at least the ones you like).
@Cattivella: That's why small companies keep copies of the orders, to avoid paying the standard tax. For bigger companies, it would be more burdensome.
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Washington is even more weird with this tax. toasted or cold, it's taxed either way. However, if it's toasted, it becomes prepared food, and people with food stamps can't buy it. Same thing in grocery stores. You can go to a grocery store and buy a cold sandwich from the deli with food stamps. But if you have them toast it, you can't buy it anymore, nor any of the other hot food items.
I wish I never worked retail, I've retained so much useless knowledge.
Ordering coffee to go, even when you intend to drink it in the store to avoid sales tax? That's tax evasion and fraud. Granted, its on a super-tiny scale, but lying and breaking the law to save 8.25% on a cup of joe? Who is this guy, and why is he dispensing terrible advice?
That's just low. It's stealing pennies from the wishing well. Think of the starving orphans!
@ludwigk: No it's not. You are free to do what ever you want with it after you purchase it, regardless of the intent of the purchase.
Otherwise driving to a lower tax zone (3.5%) to avoid paying a higher tax (7%) would be considered tax evasion and fraud.
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Always get your food to go in California, even though this uses extra packaging, since this is how the dumb greedy SOBs in Sacramento have set it up and they just jacked the rate way up again.
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Hmm, that's weird, but I did notice about a week ago when I ordered a sandwich to go for my friend that his $5 footlong was actually $5, and mine always end up being like $5.43. I was thinking maybe it had to do with the city I was in, but now it's all starting to come together... those bastards just want a toast tax! What other precious commodities will they begin taxing??
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Used to get this in my past life as a bagel-slinger. There are some weird rules about what is \"prepared\" (taxed) and what isn't. For instance, for us in NJ (in 1997) less than 6 bagels was \"prepared\" and thus subject to tax. There was a long-expired promo coupon for 3 free bagels that we were still honoring. I had 2 or 3 people walk in, hand me the coupon (which was expired!) and ask for 6 bagels then complain that they got charged $1.59 instead of $1.50! You got $1.50 in free bagels, and you're gonna argue with the pimply-faced-kid at the counter over 9 cents?
@Troy F.: People buying less than 6 bagels are most likely going to immediately consume it. That's the justification.
The tax on free stuff is standard everywhere though.
I got used to toasted = hot = prepared = taxable in CA. But the other day I ordered a $5 chicken breast sandwich, now that the $5 roast beefs are no longer. The cashier explained to me that chicken breast is \"warm\" and thus subject to the tax, while roast beef is not.
That chicken breast, btw, was just as cold as everything else they pull out of the meat case.
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@rachmanut: Try the cheapskate chicken 'pizziola' or whatever they call it when they have it. Just get un-heated chicken, but have them put some marinara on it. Should warm it up.
The three subways around me in Irvine have never charged me sales tax. I always get the chicken and bacon ranch (auto-toasted sub!) and it's always been menu price. Unless this is a recent development (I haven't been in a couple of weeks).
FWIW, Ice cream shops have the same rule.
My first job was at a 7-Eleven in PA. If someone nuked their burrito before paying, it was prepared food subject to sales tax. If they paid first, they were welcome to use our microwave to cook their frozen, untaxed burrito.
Now if I could just get the hang of \"meal taxes\" in VA, which only seem to occur outside the Beltway communities but make me feel like I'm paying sales tax in DC!
@bobpence: So VA has something similar????? Does this apply to counties in Northern Virginia (i.e. Fairfax County, Prince William?)
@compuguy1088: Not similar, additional. Not in my neck o' the woods - Fairfax, Prince William, Alexandria, or Arlington, apparently, but go out to Leesburg or down to Spotsylvania and it gets confusing, there is apparently an additional percentage on a county or city basis. Why they do this in Norfolk and not in NoVA where it could pay for some of our roads, I don't know.
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The Subway location near me (In California) always just grabs your sandwich and puts it onto the toasting tray. One has to firmly tell them that you do not one it toasted before their quick movements take your sandwich to the point of no return. The Sandwich Artists then remain upset with you as they prepare the rest of your order as you seem to have messed up their flow.
I noticed the Stay and pay tax in Ohio on my way through sometimes. I always order To Go and sit down. Screw that shit.
Oh shit, that means I've been getting consistently gypped on my Subway subs! I never get it toasted, and all my $5 footlongs ALWAYS end up coming out to like $5.33 or something, regardless of whether it's to-go or eat-in. Something tells me a few Subway franchises don't bother to make the difference.
@Allen Park: Or local tax laws, as in district, city, county, or multi-county alliance, as well as state laws in your area says subs of any kind must be taxed. Alot of complicated tax laws.
the grocery store where I work (in upstate new york) charges a $0.60 eat-in tax at their deli. After the first day, I started automatically canceling it because I hate the company I work for and all of the prepared food is ridiculously expensive already.
Nebraska is kinda similar. At subway your taxed regardless, as its still considered prepared food just because they assemble the sandwich, but at gas stations, by you heating the food in their microwave it is considered prepared food and taxed. However, if you buy the food cold its considered grocery and not taxed. I would pay my $0.14 using electricity to heat something instead of just paying the tax lol
@jst07: Seriously....could this get any more confusing? They should just amend it to either have the tax blanket covered by both hot and cold....it would make life easier.
We're sandwich artists, dammit, sandwich artists!! But really, that's crazy. Customers complain to me all the time about how there shouldn't even be tax on the food at all. I couldn't even imagine what hell it would create here if we had that kind of tax. (btw, I'm 17, so I have an excuse to work at Subway lol).
And I thought my old state (NJ) had weird food tax codes. Thanks Cali for making jersey not the worst tax state.
California (my state) is already in a huge budget crisis. Teachers are being fired. I actually mostly blame the voters for causing this mess. We have enacted so many zany propositions that block off huge chunks of the general fund for special interests that we no longer have a general fund that can fund anything.
But anyways, I'm not sure that finding ways to not pay California taxes is in our best long term interest. Or short term interest for that matter.
The funny thing is, at 99 Ranch there are prepared lunches which are cooling on the counter, but since they might go into the refrigerator later in the day if they are not sold, they are not taxed. This is the same with the prepared sushi at the counter vs. the ones sitting under the cooler. Of course, if you get the hot food under the heat lamp, that is taxed.
For us CA folks, this letter: http://www.boe.ca.gov/leonard/info/hot_chocolate.pdf goes into the details of sales tax.
It's got some very interesting points. One is that in all cases, either sales tax or use tax applies. Use tax is the exact same amount but the purchaser is responsible for reporting and paying it. They are mutually exclusive; if you pay sales tax, use tax doesn't apply. If you don't pay sales tax, use tax applies. So from a legal standpoint, you're supposed to be paying the same percentage either way, it's just a question of whether the seller charges you at time of sale or not.
It also has a long list of rules for when to apply sales tax on food and when not to. TLDR: It's complicated.
Chipotle in Cincinnati OH also charges a small tax depending on whether you are eating it to go or not. Until I realized this, I always confused about why they asked since they don't change the preparation or packaging of the meal if you are eating in or not.
In Canada, one donut gets taxed, while a dozen donuts does not.
That is a great idea, except that some places like Nation's in NorCal at least, if you order a slice of pie to go, they will absolutely not let you eat it there, with no if's or but's. Believe me I am speaking from personal experience, worst service ever!
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Is that because you are paying tax on a service at that point, and not just food? O_o
@AlteredBeast: How is preparing a sandwich not service? If they put all the ingredients in a box and you assembled later then there is no service.