Don't get tax advice from farm store managers.
and tax regimes vary GREATLY across the states - what is true for you, in your town, may not be true even in another part of town (if a special taxing district is established), much less in another state.
This is an area where it [saves] to do your own research.
Government tax "policy" is exactly the kind of incoherent and exception ridden mess you should expect out of any political process which has played out over decades or centuries where the underlying policy goals are unrelated or in tension.
There is tax policy to raise revenues - a flat sales tax on goods and services is great example.
There is tax policy to impose moral judgements on certain transactions, positive or negative - so called "sin taxes" on alcohol, cigarettes, "luxury" items and also tax forbearance on behaviors society want to encourage, like donations to charity.
and there is tax policy to encourage certain spending choices or please political constituencies. Here in Florida, we have a "tax free school holiday" to encourage the purchase of school supplies as alternative to the state funding them. We also have a "tax free hurricane holiday" to encourage people to prepare for seasonal storms. We partially reduce the tax burdens or property values for farming "Ag Exemptions", 1st homes "Homestead exemption", Veterans and Seniors (often exempted from school taxes on property)
and generally in the US, we favor only taxing the final product for end consumer use, not all the steps that turn raw materials and labor into a final product (that's the theory behind a "Value Added Tax" in the EU and elsewhere). With the obvious exception of a tax on real property (home/land taxes) but not held assets (art, jewels, precious metals, savings).
Please note that i am not offering any judgements here, merely describing the systems that is. I will not be further commenting on tax policy in the US or elsewhere - merely offering an observance for why situations may differ (substantially) between posters on this topic.
and tax regimes vary GREATLY across the states - what is true for you, in your town, may not be true even in another part of town (if a special taxing district is established), much less in another state.
This is an area where it [saves] to do your own research.
Government tax "policy" is exactly the kind of incoherent and exception ridden mess you should expect out of any political process which has played out over decades or centuries where the underlying policy goals are unrelated or in tension.
There is tax policy to raise revenues - a flat sales tax on goods and services is great example.
There is tax policy to impose moral judgements on certain transactions, positive or negative - so called "sin taxes" on alcohol, cigarettes, "luxury" items and also tax forbearance on behaviors society want to encourage, like donations to charity.
and there is tax policy to encourage certain spending choices or please political constituencies. Here in Florida, we have a "tax free school holiday" to encourage the purchase of school supplies as alternative to the state funding them. We also have a "tax free hurricane holiday" to encourage people to prepare for seasonal storms. We partially reduce the tax burdens or property values for farming "Ag Exemptions", 1st homes "Homestead exemption", Veterans and Seniors (often exempted from school taxes on property)
and generally in the US, we favor only taxing the final product for end consumer use, not all the steps that turn raw materials and labor into a final product (that's the theory behind a "Value Added Tax" in the EU and elsewhere). With the obvious exception of a tax on real property (home/land taxes) but not held assets (art, jewels, precious metals, savings).
Please note that i am not offering any judgements here, merely describing the systems that is. I will not be further commenting on tax policy in the US or elsewhere - merely offering an observance for why situations may differ (substantially) between posters on this topic.
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I was thinking about what a previous post mentioned that the tax man would be coming after me if I applied for a tax-free chicken feed exemption. That has never happened. In MN, you don't pay tax on people food, like eggs, so there would be no collecting of any sales tax that I would have to report. I buy maybe $500.00 in chicken feed every year, so sales tax would be less than $50.00. Maybe that's not enough for some people to bother with and they would opt just to pay the sales tax. However, I can get almost another 4 bags of feed for that $50.00, so I will fill out the new Form ST3 and resubmit.
So, maybe I'm going to come out ahead after all of this. I hope so.
When I brought in my completed Form ST3, the manager and workers on shift today could not have been more helpful. They were very encouraging to get people back on the tax-exempt status. Our state encourages people to use that tax-free status because they want people to use it. The manager and employees I talked to today were very supportive. What a difference from my previous interaction with the other manager!
