"100% of people who do not save money do not have any!"--Dave Ramsey

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by Fat Charlie

What kind of Nazi charges sales tax on food?

Yeah, even my tax plan involves no tax on staple foods, and no tax on the first ~$800 spent on rent.

[Xist]

I read this a while ago:

Food tax rates across [Arizona] vary from 1.5 to 4 percent.

Tempe resident Deloris Drebert stops by the grocery store several times a week to shop for her family of four. On a recent trip, she spent $35 and about 72 cents of her bill went to taxes.

Why would they shame her like that?! They could have just said "Debris Dirbert spends $245 a week on groceries and $4.90 of that goes to sales tax."

How long before she lives down the embarrassment of shopping every single day for no reason whatsoever?! She must have been the laughingstock of her friends and family!

Also, how much do people care about 70¢ every now and then? If they did they would buy sodas from the store, not from the fountain, they would get drunk at home, and they would never go to McDonald's!

“Just think, if every time I went to the store, instead of paying taxes I put that 72 cents in my pocket," she said. "That’s money that can go in the gas tank.”

Can someone help me out?! I do not have enough palms to palm my face!

Do you want to save 72¢ several times a week Debris?! Make one trip to rule them all! You could probably save that much driving your SUV!

Remember that 1.5 - 4%? They lied!

All but about 20 Arizona cities and towns tax food, collecting a total of $115.2 million

So, it varies between 0 - 4% but do we have any reason to believe that is really the highest rate?!

Seventy of the state’s 91 incorporated cities and towns charge a sales tax on groceries, said Ed Greenberg, spokesman for the Arizona Department of Revenue.

We have over seven million residents and only 91 incorporated towns and cities?!

Neither the state or its three largest cities — Phoenix, Tucson and Mesa — tax food.

The state eliminated its food tax in the 1980s.

Do those cities tax other things more?

University of Advancing Technology student Rebecca Levasseur said she supports eliminating foods taxes because "eating is not optional."

The Tempe resident said she typically spends about $40 to $60 on groceries each week. The money she would save in taxes could go to medicine or other necessities.

Weird. I lived in Tempe for four years and never heard of that place.

How far can $2.50 a week go? That is enough for one or two over-the-counter medicines a month. Shoppers could save money on groceries if food tax ban passes. Here's why cities aren't sold.

I wonder how big the other eighteen cities without a food tax are. They mentioned three tiny places that rely on food taxes, but the three largest don't have any.

9.5% sales tax is high, but on food?!

[JSH]

Originally Posted by Fat Charlie

What kind of Nazi charges sales tax on food?

"Alabama is one of only three states (Mississippi and South Dakota are the other two) that tax food for home consumption at the full rate. In Alabama, that can be as high as 11%."

• Sales tax is the major form of tax revenue in Alabama for all levels of government. Where I lived it was: 4% state + 3.5% City + 2% County = 9.5%. Almost nothing was exempt from sales tax - not even food or medications.
• Property tax is the second lowest in the country at an average of 0.48%
• Income tax is technically progressive with rates of 2%, 4%, and 5% but the top rate kicks in at $3,000 in earnings.

At the end of the day it was easy for a high income earner to pay a lower percentage of taxes than the working poor.

Surprisingly though, Alabama is only the 18th most regressive state. (The most regressive is Washington where the bottom 20% pay on average 17.8% of income in state and local taxes, the middle 60% pay 10.9%, and the top 1% pay 3.0%)

[Fat Charlie]

I suppose you get what you pay for. Alabama does lead the way in, um, something, I guess.

[Xist]

Washington is #1! Arizona is #34.

[JSH]

Originally Posted by Fat Charlie

I suppose you get what you pay for. Alabama does lead the way in, um, something, I guess.

I would say you get what you vote for.

People joked that Alabama's motto should be "Thank God for Mississippi!" because at least we aren't last in everything.

[Xist]

Two nearby houses have been for sale for a month or two. The first one put up for sale was significantly smaller and I think the owner accepted an offer after a week and a half, but then the prospective buyers realized they were paying far too much.

As I keep saying, the average house in Show Low has consistently sold for $125 per square foot for at least a year, but she wants $193. From the pictures it looks like all that she did was replace the carpet with laminate and ruin the landscaping, but she is asking 10% more than a fully-remodeled house that sold last year.

I happened to reread the description: "Completely remodeled," "New flooring, new paint, and fixtures."

The flooring is laminate and nobody should be impressed. Paint isn't a big deal and hers certainly isn't impressive. Fixtures?

The house just looks clean and I would have believed that everything was original if I didn't know that carpet was far more popular when the house was built, but laminate is vastly more common now.

I wonder how many times I have looked at allegedly-remodeled houses on-line and thought that everything was decades old.

If you cannot tell that a house was remodeled, did they cheap out, or just do a poor job?

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by Xist

I wonder how many times I have looked at allegedly-remodeled houses on-line and thought that everything was decades old.

If you cannot tell that a house was remodeled, did they cheap out, or just do a poor job?

Don't know why, but this reminds me of when I was looking for an Acura TSX. Ads would say "fully loaded". I'd respond saying the car doesn't have NAV, and they would say that's the only option it doesn't have. Thing is, that was the only option, so the car they were selling was minimally loaded.

Anyhow, I loath laminate because it's not durable with spills that don't get cleaned up immediately (think leaky refrigerator or dishwasher) and not easily reparable. Basically impossible to avoid these days. I'd probably choose vinyl plank flooring over laminate these days.

Fresh remodels don't appeal to me because they expect to get more than the cost to remodel for things I had no say in choosing. Much better to get a fixer upper and make your own remodel decisions. The chances of someone picking everything I would have picked in a remodel are as close to zero as possible.

[Fat Charlie]

Originally Posted by Xist

If you cannot tell that a house was remodeled, did they cheap out, or just do a poor job?

No, it's a restoration. Much classier. In the automotive world, it adds gobs of value.

[Xist]

That is why they are charging so much!

Do you think they used original parts?

How do you look at a house's previous listing?