Taxing humor

The last place anyone would go for comic relief is to the stacks of
dull publications that are pumped out by the Pennsylvania state
government. Who’d ever expect, for instance, to find any laughs in “A
Guide to Pennsylvania’s State Sales Tax”? Well, as it turns out, we may
have vastly underestimated the fun value of red tape and bureaucracy.

On and on, for 20 pages of tiny print, the sales tax booklet lists
which items are taxable and which aren’t. Way back, when the sales tax
was first enacted, I’d guess the politicians tried to take it easy on
the poor and soak the rich, i.e., exempt the necessities and tax the
luxuries — to even things out a bit between the beer hordes and the
wine cliques. On top of that, there’s another theory of taxation that
says it’s best to tax the things you want to discourage and exempt the
things you want to promote.

And so, right off the bat in Section 1, we find there’s a sales tax
on comic books but not on Bibles. Comics, along with every other
periodical and magazine, are taxed, as well as “instruction books for
needlecraft, embroidery and knitting,” plus crossword puzzles and
dictionaries, but not “religious publications sold by religious groups.”
Seems like the moochers and crooks at the state capitol decided it was
us who needed a pinch more
religion.

With clothes, the politicians have shot for some economic leveling by
taxing all “formal day or evening apparel,” while specifically imposing
a zero sales tax on “aprons.” Fur gets taxed, too, of course, but only
if it’s on “articles made of real, imitation or synthetic fur where the
fur is more than three times the value of the next most valuable
component material.”

Untaxed are the more basic wardrobe staples like belts, boots, and
suspenders (even though suspenders are now popping up all over in BMWs),
while the more vain “accessories” and “ornamental wear” get fully taxed.
There’s no sales tax on work clothes, work uniforms, safety clothing,
and yard goods (“to make clothing”), or girdles and underpants — and no
tax on even some less essential items like leotards, tights, neckwear,
headwear, lingerie, handkerchiefs, gym suits, stockings, scout uniforms
and “camp clothes.”

With gloves, it gets more tricky. They’re untaxed if made of “cloth,
leather and kid,” taxed if made of “fur” or “sheepskin,” and taxed if
used for “baseball, golf, racket, etc.” With “rainwear,” it’s all
untaxed, unless it’s an umbrella.

With big events like weddings and Halloween, the politicians have hit
both the rich and the poor, taxing all “Halloween costumes” as well as
all “corsages, boutonnieres, and bridal apparel and accessories,” except
garters and garter belts.

For farmers, it’s “artificial breeding equipment” that goes untaxed.
Instead, build a nice cozy shed where the animals might be encouraged to
breed more naturally and the state taxes every nail and board. Cooling
equipment on the farm is taxed but not farm ice. Brooms and fire
prevention equipment are taxed but not “dehorners” and “debeakers.” With
vegetable seeds, they’re untaxed if bought by farmers but taxed if
“purchased by anyone not engaged in the business of farming,” unless the
seeds are “purchased with food stamps.” With farm fences, they’re taxed
if permanent, untaxed if portable. The same with a dentist’s drill —
taxed if reusable, untaxed if disposable. And the same with hospital
needles and sheets — taxed only if reusable.

At home, there’s a sales tax on most everything from ant traps to
wigs, unless you’re hurt or into sewing. There’s no sales tax on
zippers, buttons, buckles, thread, gauze and arm slings. For the
bedroom, one of my more promiscuous friends tells me that, while there
is no tax for plain condoms, there is for flavored ones.

But it’s especially with what they label “Toilet Goods” that the
politicians have thrown out every theory about not taxing the basics —
and tossed aside all concerns for gender equity.
Here, just about everything is taxed, except toothpaste. On election
day, Pennsylvania’s women might want to remember that the boys in the
state legislature have declared every single one of the following items
to be too fancy-schmancy, i.e., silly items that should be hit with the
full sales tax: bath crystals, bleach creams, blush, bouquet liquids,
breath sweeteners,
bubble bath, antiperspirants, colognes, cocoa butter, compacts
(including, in the rules from the boys in the legislature, “refills”),
cosmetics, dusting powder, essences and extracts, eyebrow pencils,
eyelash mascara, eye shadow, face creams and lotions and powders, face
packs, foundation make-up, freckle removers, hair things (including
“bleaches, conditioners, dressings, rinses, lotions, dyes, coloring,
tints, pomades, removers, restoratives, sprays, straighteners, tonics,
oils and creams”), lip ices and salves and pomades, lipstick (including
“refills”), liquid lip color, manicure preps, mask preps, massage
creams, mousse, mouthwash, nail things (including “bleaches, polishes,
lacquers, paste, powder, liquid or enamels”), polish remover, perfumes
(including “novelties containing perfume”), rouges, sachets, scalp
lotion, shampoos, permanent things (including “waving creams, lotions,
kits and neutralizers”), liquid and cream powder bases, skin balms
(including “creams, bleaches, fresheners, lotions, oils, tonics and
whiteners”), sunburn allergy creams and preventatives, talcum powder,
tissue creams, water piks, wave sets, wrinkle removing preparations, and
vanishing creams.

My wife says she thinks she has everything on that list, give or take
a few. “They give us free samples at the department stores,” she says.
In contrast, all I have is a bar of soap and a few disposable razors.
What we’re looking at, in short, is a special tax on women, a case of
some tax-hungry and non-powdered dirtballs in the legislature making all
the rules, men who don’t
know a sachet from a pomade. If it was me, and I was being soaked big
time with taxes on all that stuff, I’d say it was time to apply some
vanishing cream to the grubby chauvinists at the state capitol.

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Ralph R. Reiland, Associate Professor
of Economics at Robert Morris College and the owner Amel’s, a bar and
restaurant in Pittsburgh, is the co-author of “Mom & Pop vs. The
Dreambusters,” available at
Amazon.com.