43
Taxing our Bagels
It’s different strokes for different folks when it comes to paying taxes. Depending on where you live, Uncle Sam manages to reach into your pockets for different reasons. For those living in Maryland, flushing your toilet is going to cost you. There is a $60 “flush tax” that the state uses to update treatment plants and protect the Chesapeake Bay, which has experienced a decline in water quality. The tax was implemented in 2004 and was then doubled in 2012. New York is the home of the best bagels, but eating those chewy breakfast items will cost you. There is a “bagel tax” in New York—about 8 cents a bagel—unless you purchase it to go, unsliced, unheated or in the same way you’d find it in a supermarket or grocery store. If you opt for a shmear, Uncle Sam is going to enjoy that bagel along with you. Sporting legends better beware. Around 20 states—including Arizona and New Jersey, tax the revenue of professional athletes who come and play in their
that contain no more than 54 cards. Maybe the song should be changed to “Alabama Hold ‘Em”—your taxes, that is. Ever see a cowboy wearing a rope around his waist? Well, it could that he comes from Texas, where belt buckles— not ordinary belts—are taxed. Texans can choose to go belt buckle-free until the sales tax holiday week, which takes place every August. Bodybuilders across the nation, listen up. The cost of your body oil is tax deductible. It’s considered a business expense since they use it to prepare for and pump up before competitions, according to a 2004 tax court case. How about their
vitamin shakes or wheatgrass shots? No such luck there.
Oldest USS Arizona Survivor Dies
After living for 100 years, the oldest living crewmember of the battleship USS Arizona to survive the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor has died in Northern California. Retired Navy Lt. Commander Joseph Langdell left this world on February 4 at a nursing home in Yuba City, Calif., accord-
FEBRUARY 12, 2015
National
jurisdiction. Dubbed the jock tax, it was started by California in the early 1990s when the Chicago Bulls visited. In Maine, a tax on wild blueberries may have you singing the blues. It’s about $1.50 per 100 lbs. on those fruits processed in the state or unprocessed but shipped outside the state. The state is using the money to conserve and promote the wild blueberry industry. It produces 99 percent of all the wild blueberries in the U.S. Playing cards in Alabama? Make sure it has the revenue stamp on it showing the tax on it has been paid. If it doesn’t, you’re playing with contraband goods. Alabama imposes a tax on decks of playing cards
THE JEWISH HOME
in Judea-Samaria that were allegedly built on private Palestinian land. According to the ruling, the authorities have until 2017 to carry out the demolitions in Ofra, north of Jerusalem. “Given the difficulty in implementing the demolitions, where families live in most of the buildings and to allow them to find alternative accommodation, I propose that the demolition orders be carried out within two years of this judgment,” judge Asher Grunis wrote. It was a long-awaited response to a petition filed in 2008 by five Palestinian landowners and leftist NGO Yesh Din. “The petition before us relates to buildings about which there is no disputing the fact that they were constructed illegally,” the court said.