Getting Too Upset About Sales Taxes

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In Washington state we have a sales tax but no state income tax. We also do not pay taxes on most food items. Food bought at a restaurant is taxed. Most food bought at a grocery store is not. Anything else bought is subject to a sales tax. The sales tax varies depending on where you live in the state because included is a sales tax for the county and the city. Where I live the sale tax is 8.7%. Over in Idaho there is a state income tax and a sales tax. The sales tax is lower than Washington’s sales tax. Also everything is taxed, including food. Idaho residents can deduct the amount of tax spent on food, or take a predetermined amount, off their state income tax. Idaho’s sales tax is 7.9%. One day at break time I was sitting in the break room. A woman sitting at the same table was looking through ads for a chain hardware store. I knew she drove right by a store on her way home. “Are you going put those items up on your way home?” I asked. “Oh, no!” the woman replied. “I’m going over to Idaho where I don’t have to pay as much sales tax.” I didn’t ask her any more questions but I sat there thinking how stupid that was. She would more than likely spend more money on gas driving to Idaho than she would just paying the .08% difference in sales tax. Many people don’t stop and do the math to see if they are actually saving money. The items this woman was going to buy total up to about $50. That meant she was saving four cents on the tax buying it in the store in Idaho. She would have to drive sixteen miles round trip to the store in Idaho. It would have cost her possible one cent in gas to pull into and out of the store’s parking lot on her way home. It is estimated to cost fifty cents a mile in wear and tear and gas to operate a vehicle. The woman’s saving would then be minus $7.95. I had to laugh, under my breath, at the fact that this woman actually thought she was saving money.