General merchandise cannot be sold below
cost by retailers or wholesalers in
Wisconsin without violating
the law. Gas, tobacco and alcohol
must be marked up to amounts
specified by formulas in state
statute.
The definition of “cost” includes a presumptive 3% markup by wholesalers and presumptive 6% markup by retailers. Cost for wholesalers who operate retail outlets or retailers who purchase directly from the manufacturer includes a 9.18% markup (3% plus 6% compounded).
On what grounds? It obviously isn’t illegal to possess alcohol in PA.
Alcohol is only sold in Pennsylvania by the state liquor control board and they charge an 18% tax on liquor and wine sales on top of a 6% sales tax. Buying liquor out of state denies Pennsylvania all tax revenues the state considers due to it on liquor purchases.
Hitchhiking:
Most state laws prohibit standing in the road to solicit a ride (which often means the paved shoulder is ok, but sometimes not).
Hitchhiking on freeways is prohibited in CO, CT, MA, MI, OH, OK, SC and WA.
It is wholly illegal in AR, ME, PA, TN and UT.
I don’t understand how PA can assess a tax on a transaction that takes place outside their jurisdiction.
California is the only state that allows lane splitting (which is very surprising as they ban anything fun).
I don’t know how many states make public intoxication legal, but Nevada is one of them. What I think is unique is that jurisdictions are forbidden from making their own laws forbidding it. Note that open container is still illegal in most places.
Colorado, Kansas, Minnesota, Oklahoma, and Utah restrict alcohol to 3.2 (ABW, 4.0% ABV) in grocery stores etc.
Emissions and alcohol laws are a mess. Also, NV does not require smog, but the two counties where almost 80% of the population lives do require it annually.
Anyone who can legally own a gun can conceal it without a license in VT, AK, AR, AZ, ID, KS, ME, MS, WV, WY. suppose that’s beyond “a few states” now, but until 2010 it was only VT and AK (and only the former had the law for more than a decade).
Most states with sales taxes do this. It’s called a use tax. I don’t know if that’s the grounds for banning the importation of alcohol, but states don’t need grounds to ban the importation of alcohol. Part of the deal when prohibition was repealed was that states would get free rein to continue whatever parts of prohibition they wanted to keep.
There are substantial differences in what professions are required to be licensed. While all states require doctors to be licensed, something like bartenders are only licensed in a few states:
In Maine, we have sales tax, as most other states do. However, there is one huge exception to it. If you pay with reward points, your purchase is not taxable. Is this the case anywhere else?
Correct. Bars with the right kind of license (serve food) can open on Sundays, but no carryout alcohol purchases are permitted.
In addition, groceries can’t sell cold beer any day of the week. Only warm (and nothing on Sunday)
Here in Minnesota, we have reservations where they sell tobacco products much cheaper than elsewhere in the state, because they don’t charge the state tax. Supposedly, these are only supposed to be sold to tribal members or residents on the reservation, but the tribal store doesn’t care. Also reported to not care much about enforcing the minimum age requirement for tobacco purchases.
Every so often, the state posts police on the roads from the reservation, and stops cars to check them. (It’s said that they have undercover people posted who radio them the license plates of purchasers, because they don’t stop every car.) If they find any tobacco products, they are confiscated and the people get a ticket with a big fine. Actually possessing the products isn’t illegal, and the location of the sale doesn’t matted; – the crime is the possession of tobacco products not bearing the required state tax stamp.
The reason for this, or course, is that these people are cheating the state out of the revenues of these tobacco taxes (which are mostly spent on health costs of combating tobacco addiction). And also, all the other stores selling tobacco products legally complain to their state legislators. So the state periodically conducts these ‘stings’ to catch ‘illegal imports’ into the state.
In Michigan at least, barter is not taxed. If you trade something of value for something else of value, even if in the intervening time how much you can receive in exchange is kept track of by a monetary value, the sale is not taxed. At least, that’s what one game store here says. They scrupulously charge sales tax on top of their marked prices when (I think) most places just eat the tax themselves on single cards (and I’m sure some places just don’t even ring up some sales and evade the tax), but keep the flat prices when dealing with people who use store credit.
Michigan is one of three states in which it is still illegal to cohabitate with an unrelated member of the opposite sex. Even though it is obviously not enforced, and may be unconstitutional due to Lawrence v Texas, it is still grounds for the IRS to disallow a cohabiting partner from being claimed as a dependent by the other partner because the tax code specifies that the relationship between the two people must not violate local law. Specifically, it says that if the relationship between the taxpayer and potential dependent violates local law, they are not regarded as being in the same household. And non-relatives can only be dependents if they are members of the taxpayer’s household. See IRC Sec. 152, particularly (f)(3).
Well, those are pretty much the only states where a lot of citrus is grown commercially. The quarantines extend beyond citrus and also cover ornamental foliage. The quarantines are intended to protect commercial agricultural interests from pests and diseases found in certain states but not in others. There’s also an element of economic protectionism – “Oh no, you’re not going to sell your damned oranges in my state! But I’ll relax restrictions on your oranges if you cut us some slack on our bromeliads.” When I worked in FL Dept of Ag regulatory inspection, FL and CA fought each other so much, the regs we had to enforce for this arriving truckload might be quite different before the next consignment arrived. Kept me attentive!
Sorry, now back to your regularly progressing thread.
CA has agriculture check stations a little after you cross the border. All vehicles have to stop, not just semis, although if you have a local license plate they normally wave you through. Do these other states enforce it in the same way?
I can’t remember rewards stores charging tax, but then I don’t think it’s a law just the common policy. It could be that the tax is rolled into the price or they pay it for you, but there are no hidden surprises when you use them.
Because it is illegal to bring alcohol into PA
Ah, thanks. So it ~is~ illegal to possess alcohol in PA, of unapproved provenance.
Louisiana laws are not only based on English common law, they are also based on Napoleonic code so they tend to have laws that are not typical.
How about the people’s veto? Although 23 states might be more than a few. If a petition to repeal a law gathers enough signatures, it must be put to a referendum. I have seen this used in Maine several times.
Yes it does. It is also good about crafting creative laws. Louisiana still had an 18 year old drinking age that was perfectly legal for all practical purposes well into the late 1990’s even when the country supposedly had a 21 year old drinking age.
It still does to some degree:
*What is the legal age to enter a bar in Louisiana?
18 years old.
What is the legal drinking age in Louisiana?
21 years old. However, 18-20 year olds may consume alcohol in an alcoholic beverage outlet if they are accompanied by a parent, spouse, or legal guardian who is 21 years of age or older.*
As you can imagine, that giant loophole (put there intentionally) is not very hard to circumvent nor is it enforced much.
http://www.servsafe.com/downloads/pdfs/ssa-key-laws/louisiana
A few other states like Wisconsin have similar laws for 18 - 20 year olds. Ohio has a very watered down version of it.