Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Taxes? Humph!

  
Tucson Weather Today

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Yesterday I ordered from Amazon the Kindle Edition of the novel Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. The price was $9.99. Within seconds the novel was successfully downloaded to my Kindle. Later in the day, I received via email an invoice from Amazon for $9.99 plus 86 cents tax, for a total of $10.85.

"Whoa Nelly!" What's goin' on here? Tax? What tax? I suppose it's some kind of Sales Tax. But a sales tax has never before been levied on any purchase I've made from Amazon in all the years I have been buying stuff from them. In some cases, when the price was relatively high, such as my TV, I bought it from Amazon to avoid paying the exorbitant Tuscon and Arizona Sales Tax.

I sent an email to Amazon asking why I am suddenly being taxed for online purchases. Supposedly I will receive a reply within 24 hours.

We'll see.


Taxes. Humph!
I remember once a long, long time ago when my dad was angrily stomping from room to room complaining about the income tax form he was filling out.

"Income tax!" he shouted.

Looking right down at me from his incredibly tall height of five feet ten inches, he said, "I remember when this Income Tax first started. They said it was a temporary thing and would only last until the country solved this emergency. Ha! It'll never end, mark my words. It's all Bull Shit! Don't believe anything a politician ever tells you. They're liars, every single last one of them. Don't you ever forget that."

I never did forget it.


Okay . . . here is an update. An email answer came from Amazon. It is a sales tax. Yes, Amazon is now going to be collecting sales tax. On some items.

Amazon states: "You can find additional information about sellers and states or countries that collect sales tax in our Help pages here: www.amazon.com/help/tax#merchants


Great!

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WORD FOR TODAY

levied
past participle, past tense of levy
Verb
Impose (a tax, fee, or fine).
Impose a tax, fee, or fine on.

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BORN ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

   
Buffalo Bob Smith
Birthday: November 27, 1917
Died: July 30, 1998

Buffalo Bob Smith (born Robert Emil Schmidt) was the host of the children's show Howdy Doody.

The Howdy Doody Show was the very first television show I ever saw, and it was when I was around 11 or 12 years old circa 1950 while attending a neighbor's (Paul Moore) birthday party. Not long after than my dad installed a set at our house. It had a 7-inch dark green screen and was connected to an antenna 50-feet in the air atop five lengths of water pipe. It received the only channel available, (WBKB, I think) out of Chicago which was eighty miles away. That single channel came on the air at four o'clock in the afternoon and went off at midnight. Our favorite program was Professional Wrestling.



Birthday: November 27, 1964
Age: 47 years old

Robin Simone Givensis an American actress and model. She is perhaps best known for her role as Darlene Merriman on the ABC television sitcom, Head of the Class.

After meeting in March 1987, Givens married boxer Mike Tyson on February 7, 1988. Tyson was then estimated to have US$50 million, and he and Givens did not make a prenuptial agreement. During their marriage, Givens and her mother bought a $4.5 million mansion in the affluent suburb of Bernardsville, New Jersey.



Birthday: November 27, 1941
Died: May 7, 1998

Edward Thomas "Eddie" Rabbitt was an American singer-songwriter and musician. His career began as a songwriter in the late 1960s, springboarding to a recording career after composing hits such as "Kentucky Rain" for Elvis Presley in 1970 and "Pure Love" for Ronnie Milsap in 1974. Later in the 1970s, Rabbitt helped to develop the crossover-influenced sound of country music prevalent in the 1980s with such hits as "Suspicions" and "Every Which Way but Loose." His duets "Friends and Lovers" and "You and I", with Juice Newton and Crystal Gayle respectively, later appeared on the soap operas Days of Our Lives and All My Children.



Birthday: November 27, 1957
Age: 54 years old

Caroline Bouvier Kennedy is an American author and attorney. She is a member of the influential Kennedy family and the only living child of U.S. President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy.

In the 2008 presidential election, Kennedy endorsed Democratic candidate Barack Obama for President early in the primary race; she later stumped for him in Orlando, Indiana, and Ohio, served as co-chair of his Vice Presidential Search Committee, and addressed the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver. After Obama's selection of then-Senator Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, Kennedy expressed interest in being appointed to Clinton's vacant Senate seat from New York, but she later withdrew from consideration, citing "personal reasons."


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The genius of our ruling class is that it has kept a majority of the people from ever questioning the inequity of a system where most people drudge along, paying heavy taxes for which they get nothing in return.
--Gore Vidal


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