Maybe you've seen NJ's ridiculous budget woes on the news recently. A large portion of state government is shut down because the high mucky-mucks can't agree on how to balance the budget. The main sticking point seems to be whether to raise the state sales tax from 6% to 7%. Only one penny on the dollar, but a 16% increase nonetheless.
It's made me start wondering about how much sales tax we're paying already in our household, and how much this might affect us.
I finally found an article that said a $50,000 a year household was currently paying about $713 a year in sales tax, and the proposed increase would add $122 for a total of $835 a year.
It's kind of a shock to realize that $700 of our money has been going down the drain on sales tax each year, and I've barely been aware of it.
I don't know if there's any way I could actually cut down on it--so much of what's taxable is stuff you have to buy anyway. But I think I'll start tracking it in Quicken, just out of curiosity.
$713 blind spot--NJ Sales Tax
July 6th, 2006 at 07:43 pm
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