Soooooo......

[alphabassettgrrl]

::giggle::

In other stuff, husband and I took his motorcycle up to Death Valley for a couple of days to take pictures of the wildflowers. Kind of an experiment, to see how it is to take a longer trip like this on a bike, and it worked out pretty well. The bike's pretty comfy.

I posted a few of the pictures on https://500px.com/500pxscubagrrl

[RStar]

Originally Posted by alphabassettgrrl

::giggle::

In other stuff, husband and I took his motorcycle up to Death Valley for a couple of days to take pictures of the wildflowers. Kind of an experiment, to see how it is to take a longer trip like this on a bike, and it worked out pretty well. The bike's pretty comfy.

I posted a few of the pictures on https://500px.com/500pxscubagrrl

Nice! I think the flowers were on the tail end of blooming. I'm surprised there were any left, actually. But it was still beautiful!

[SzczerbiakManiac]

How much longer was it?

[RStar]

Originally Posted by SzczerbiakManiac

How much longer was it?

Long enough to get the job done, I suppose!

[Ghoulish Delight]

Accurate

[Ghoulish Delight]

First off - based on the range of tax ammounts, you're only being charged tax on the breakfast sandwich (I'm guessing the breakfast sandwich is hot, the $5 footlong is not? California law, the hot sandwiches are taxable, cold are not).

Why the difference? Don't know. Possibly a difference in how they decide to charge it at the register causes the computer to decide different sub-totals are taxable? What's sales tax where you are?

[SzczerbiakManiac]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

I'm guessing the breakfast sandwich is hot, the $5 footlong is not?

That's correct.

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

What's sales tax where you are?

I think it's 9%--or at least very close to that.

I know food tax laws are pretty wonky. Hot vs. cold, prepared on premises vs. not, etc. I figured tax jazz was entangled in this pricing oddity.

I went through my debit card history. On 6/2 I got charged $9.76, so there's a fourth variation.

[RStar]

That is so strange. If it bounced back and forth between two figures, I could understand. But four? Maybe the tax is being charged on the full retail value, and each sandwich is a different price that is on the daily $5 foot long special. I don't even understand why the tax should be different for hot or cold, take away or eaten on premises. Tax laws are funky.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by RStar

That is so strange. If it bounced back and forth between two figures, I could understand. But four? Maybe the tax is being charged on the full retail value, and each sandwich is a different price that is on the daily $5 foot long special. I don't even understand why the tax should be different for hot or cold, take away or eaten on premises. Tax laws are funky.

It's because a law as passed that tax cannot be charged for unprepared food (and baked goods). The premise being, people should be able to, you know, eat and survive without taxation. So in California, there's no tax on your groceries. And it was decided that stacking a bunch of groceries on bread doesn't count as preparing. Therefore a cold sandwich falls under that category. But a heated sandwich does not. And ordering to eat in rather than to-go makes you subject to tax because now you're not just buying groceries, you're taking advantage of a service.

At 9% tax, the $9.31 figure is probably what it's "supposed" to be. That works out the the correct 9% tax on a $3.95 hot sandwich. But I'm still betting that there are different ways the items can get rung up (as separate items, some sort of combo, a lower price something or other + a fee...) that end up with some slightly different value being used to calculate the tax.

[RStar]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

It's because a law as passed that tax cannot be charged for unprepared food (and baked goods). The premise being, people should be able to, you know, eat and survive without taxation. So in California, there's no tax on your groceries. And it was decided that stacking a bunch of groceries on bread doesn't count as preparing. Therefore a cold sandwich falls under that category. But a heated sandwich does not. And ordering to eat in rather than to-go makes you subject to tax because now you're not just buying groceries, you're taking advantage of a service.

Thank you, GD. That does make since. However, I would think any establishment preparing food would be considered "prepared food" and would be taxed accordingly- hot or cold. But frankly, I feel we are over taxed in CA so any time there is no tax I'm fine with it!