# USA, a "free" country?!? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 20, 2000, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-a-free-country/33906 "2000-09-20T20:54:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![dietrologia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@dietrologia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dietrologia)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2000, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-a-free-country/33906/1 "2000-09-20T20:54:28Z")
I’m at work and get my paycheck, from which approximately 33% has been removed in the form of state & federal tax and social security payment. I take my car (the car that I pay a state license/registration fee on) to my home (that I pay property taxes on). I open up my fridge which runs on electricty which I must pay a state utility surcharge (and state tax) on, and see that I need some items from the grocery store. I drive to the store, but fill up the tank with gas on the way. I pay about 30-40 cents per gallon tax on this gasoline. I get to the store and purchase the products I need. I pay 8.25% tax on these items. Should I purchase alchohol or cigarettes, the cost of these items includes further federal and state taxes. In the face of all of this, should I manage to save any money and put it into an interest bearing account, the government taxes the interest that I had the gall to accrue. Should I be in the position of dying with any assets or money accumulated, the government comes in and requests, ever-so-kindly, that an estate tax be paid. Have a nice day! ---
**Author:** ![mouthbreather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a698b9/32.png) [@mouthbreather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mouthbreather)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2000, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-a-free-country/33906/2 "2000-09-20T21:02:29Z")
For extra income, you could rent out a side of your house for advertising space. I know how you love that kind of stuff. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Suo\_Na](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/898d66/32.png) [@Suo\_Na](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suo_Na)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2000, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-a-free-country/33906/3 "2000-09-20T21:25:59Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by dietrologia \* > \*\*I’m at work and get my paycheck, from which approximately 33% has been removed in the form of state & federal tax and social security payment. > \*\* Hey, be glad you’re an American at least. I live in your country because my husband is a grad student here. They take that social security payment off his cheque too, even though when he retires he’ll have been back home in Canada for 30 some-odd years. You _may_ get that SS money back, but we _won’t_. ---
**Author:** ![SPOOFE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@SPOOFE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SPOOFE)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2000, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-a-free-country/33906/4 "2000-09-20T22:09:33Z")
Hey, at least you have access to the SDMB. Things could be worse. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2000, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-a-free-country/33906/5 "2000-09-20T22:13:00Z")
Uhhh…most people I know don’t pay sales tax on their groceries. Where do you live? ---
**Author:** ![MysteryFellow63427](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e4f/32.png) [@MysteryFellow63427](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MysteryFellow63427)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2000, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-a-free-country/33906/6 "2000-09-20T23:01:53Z")
Go back to Russia. ---
**Author:** ![OpalCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8edcca/32.png) [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2000, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-a-free-country/33906/7 "2000-09-20T23:04:04Z")
In VA we pay tax on groceries. Didn’t in AZ… but we do in VA 😛 ---
**Author:** ![dietrologia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@dietrologia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dietrologia)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2000, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-a-free-country/33906/8 "2000-09-20T23:15:58Z")
**Go back to Russia** But I don’t wanna go! I want my free stuff. Gimme, gimme gimme. Whine! **For extra income, you could rent out a side of your house for advertising space.** Ohhhhh. That’s a cold one, brother. And here in the pit, too, where everyone’s supposed to love one another! I’m just convinced people are mindless sheep. No one complains 'cuz taxes are swiped from you without your realizing it. If the various federal, state & local authorities didn’t take ANY taxes from you, but sent you a big ol’ tax bill at the end of the year… imagine the howl that would go up when everyone wrote that fat check! Yeah, sure. Things are great in the US of A, doesn’t mean they couldn’t be a whole lot better. Huzzah to complacency! ---
**Author:** ![Skelji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b38774/32.png) [@Skelji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skelji)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2000, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-a-free-country/33906/9 "2000-09-20T23:17:31Z")
I live in AL now, and we pay taxes on our groceries, too. Didn’t in NY. Hell, AL has to get it somewhere! They sure don’t make us pay much in the way of other taxes, like property taxes, state income taxes. Thank God I don’t have kids, because the lack of taxes sure shows itself in the fine educational system in this state 😛 I hear ya, **dietrologia** , but I know enough people in Europe who would love to pay what we pay here. All things considered, we could definitely have it worse. At least we don’t pay 4 bucks a gallon for gasoline. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2000, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-a-free-country/33906/10 "2000-09-21T00:46:19Z")
Funny…I didn’t think anyone in the US paid sales tax on groceries. I assumed it was a federal law. Seems I’ve been living a sheltered life in New York. Though I do like those tax-exempt clothing days. Seeing as I buy all my clothes at Wal-Mart. ---
**Author:** ![neutron\_star](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/51bf81/32.png) [@neutron\_star](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/neutron_star)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2000, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-a-free-country/33906/11 "2000-09-21T06:37:57Z")
When I lived in PA, sales tax was 6% and wasn’t charged for clothing or staple foods. Now I’m in Louisiana and this damn 7.5% sales tax is applied to _everything_! And what does the state have to show for it? Crappy roads, crappy (and very few) playgrounds and parks, and politicians with very, very fat wallets. GRRRR! ---
**Author:** ![Homer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/df788c/32.png) [@Homer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Homer)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2000, 8:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-a-free-country/33906/12 "2000-09-21T08:08:01Z")
All we ever do is bitch and moan. Taxes, censorship, abortion, civil rights, guns, politicians, government waste, bad schools, bad roads, rich getting richer while the poor get poorer. This is nothing. We are doing nothing. Why are the American people so quick to complain, yet lie so complacent in their homes? When will we finally rise up and throw off the oppression, glad handling, and crushing weight of this government and it’s politicians, and recreate our country into one that pleases us? When will we finally stop speaking our anger and show it? When will we take action, and get what we want, instead of what _they_ want to give us? Sweet shit, people. There’s nothing immoral or unConstitutional about being so dissatisfied with the way our country is being run that we would destroy the shanty it lives in and rebuild our glorious republic so that it may serve our current lives, and last, flexible and proud, into the future for our children and their children and so forth. We’ve become so stagnant in our lives. We are Rome, right before the fall. We complain complain complain, but does anything get done? NO. Not a GOD DAMNED thing. VOTE, people. With your words, with your actions, with your thoughts, purchases, and lifestyles. I’m fed fucking up with how everyone is joyous to complain but action is wont. –Tim ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2000, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-a-free-country/33906/13 "2000-09-21T16:16:58Z")
What he said. We are only taxed because we allow ourselves to be. We are only governed because we allow ourselves to be. Don’t like it? Work to change it. True, it won’t happen overnight, but it won’t happen at all if everyone just sits on their Eddie Bauer Edition asses and bitches about it. Shit or get off the fucking pot. (Dear god, I’m agreeing with Homer.;)) ---
**Author:** ![Gravity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gravity/32/14322_2.png) [@Gravity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gravity)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2000, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-a-free-country/33906/14 "2000-09-21T16:38:17Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by friedo \* > \*\*Funny…I didn’t think anyone in the US paid sales tax on groceries. I assumed it was a federal law. Seems I’ve been living a sheltered life in New York. > > Though I do like those tax-exempt clothing days. Seeing as I buy all my clothes at Wal-Mart. > > \*\* NO sales tax on food or ingestible medical items here in Vermont, either. They briefly considered a ‘junk food tax’ to make items like chips, soda and ding-dongs taxable, but they decided that it would be too hard to define ‘junk food’ and dropped it. Just a little while ago they made it so that clothes that are less then $100- per item are non-taxable. THAT was a great thing, let me tell you. Every little break helps. K. ---
**Author:** ![Hamadryad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/6de8d8/32.png) [@Hamadryad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamadryad)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2000, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-a-free-country/33906/15 "2000-09-21T17:04:51Z")
Count Virginia as a “tax anything we can” state. Fun part is going across city/county lines…in Henrico I am charged 4.5% sales tax, but if I drive two miles and buy something in the City of Richmond it goes up to 9%. And they wonder why the downtown area is DEAD, DEAD, DEAD. FWIW, I vote. ---
**Author:** ![Dogzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@Dogzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogzilla)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2000, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-a-free-country/33906/16 "2000-09-21T18:02:44Z")
And what happened to “taxation without representation?” I think you should all drive your SUV’s into your swimming pools… as a protest, of course, on gasoline taxes. Or burn your house down to protest the property taxes you didn’t vote for… ---
**Author:** ![Mojo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Mojo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mojo)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2000, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-a-free-country/33906/17 "2000-09-21T19:39:31Z")
dietrologia, of course you drove off-road to the store as you wouldn’t want to use the roads that were paid for with the taxes you’re complaining so bitterly about? And I haven’t heard too many complaints from people who’ve paid the estate tax:). ---
**Author:** ![SaxFace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@SaxFace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SaxFace)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2000, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-a-free-country/33906/18 "2000-09-21T20:42:40Z")
In NYC, we don’t pay tax on groceries or clothing EVER. That’s right - I can go to the Gap and buy a $50 pair of jeans, and they will cost $50. I love this town. ---
**Author:** ![johnson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d07c76/32.png) [@johnson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnson)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2000, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-a-free-country/33906/19 "2000-09-21T21:00:50Z")
> [@](#): > > Count Virginia as a “tax anything we can” state. Fun part is going across city/county lines…in Henrico I am charged 4.5% sales tax, but if I drive two miles and buy something in the City of Richmond it goes up to 9%. Virginia is actually one of the least taxed states in the country. And if you’re paying 9% sales tax to anyone in Richmond, you’re being ripped off and you should report them to the Department of Taxation. The sales tax in VA is 4.5% (one of the lowest rates in the country)–3.5% for the state and 1% for the local government–and I am 99.9% certain that no localities have a rate higher than that (the story may differ for restaurants, rental cars, hotels, etc., and now food of course, but I am almost certain that the general sales tax rate does not exceed 4.5% anywhere in the commonwealth).