Monthly Summary - January

Time for my first monthly summary. As you can see, I don't really spend very much on taxable items; the two unusual purchases (tire and airline ticket) made up much of the sales taxes. The most surprising thing I've learned so far is how many types of taxes there are!

Likely Recurring
NY Sales Tax: $12.58
County Sales Tax: 12.16
MTA Tax: 1.17
E911 Cost Recovery: 0.48
Phone Regulatory Recovery: 1.97
Federal Gas Tax: 2.12
NY State Petroleum Business Tax: 1.96
NY State Petroleum Testing Fee: 0.01

Likely Nonrecurring
NY Tire Fee: $2.50
Airport Fee: 34.04
Int'l Passenger Service Charge: 22.03
Airport Tax (FR): 20.00
Int'l Passenger Service Charge: 18.22
US International Transportation Tax (arrival): 16.30
US International Transportation Tax (departure): 16.30
US INS User Fee: 7.00
US Customs User Fee: 5.50
US APHIS Fee: 5.00
USA Passenger Facility Charge: 4.50
Security charge (BEG): 4.41
USA Passenger Civil Aviation Security Service Fee: 2.50

Monthly Total: $190.75
YTD Total: $190.75

Sales Tax - Ooma

Picked up an Ooma device online.... and of course paid sales tax on it.

NY Sales Tax (4%): $5.80
County Sales Tax (3.75%): $5.44
MTA Tax (0.375%): $0.54

Gas - 11 Gallon Fill-Up

(This post took about an hour two write up)

11.523 gallons of gasoline. The price at the pump was $3.12/gal. Even though most taxes are applied per-gallon, this number is still relevant as we shall see.

This is the first time I've ever calculated the amount of tax I paid for filling my tank, and I had to do quite a bit of digging to get these numbers; it's not something that is itemized on the receipt. And for good reason: the receipt would be too long. Google results for several sites list "blended" rates for NY gas tax, without breaking it out. I needed to research NY's per-gallon taxes on gas, plus find out if NY also applies sales tax (it does). Interestingly, the state and MTA tax when applied to gas is a per-gallon tax, instead of a percentage, as it is with sales tax.

Once I found all the rates, it was easy to multiply. The tricky one was county sales tax; some NY counties have also adopted per-gallon taxes, but Dutchess still uses a percentage. To calculate this, I followed the instructions in NY Pub 873, except I used the tables without the MTA tax, since I've calculated that separately.

If applied as a whole, the total tax rate would be a little over 20%.

Federal Gas Tax (18.4 cents/gal): $2.12
NY State Petroleum Business Tax (17 cents/gal): $1.96
NY State Sales Tax (8 cents/gal): $0.92
MTA Tax (0.75 cents/gal): $0.09
NY State Petroleum Testing Fee (0.05 cents/gal): $0.01
Dutchess County Sales Tax (3.75%): $1.23

Sources: NY Pub 718-F (local tax), NY Pub 908 (fuel tax rates), NY Pub 873 (local rate tables)

Phone Charges - Jan

This will be the first of 12 monthly phone tax posts.

I pay annually for VOIP service, but every month they hit me with a small charge to recover government-mandated fees; these are on top of the taxes that are assessed when paying my annual fee.

E911 Cost Recovery: $0.48
Regulatory Recovery: $1.97

The Company reasoning for charging an E911 recovery fee is to "provide you with Enhanced and Nomadic Emergency Services. Based on Federal guidelines, we are required to provide these services as your phone provider."

Regulatory Recovery is described by the company as "intended to help offset costs incurred by our company associated with supporting services such as providing disability access and certain otherwise unspecified state and local sales and telephone taxes."

Sales Tax - Fast Food

Not usual, but today was a Wendy's day. Verdict on sea salt fries: good, but not a major improvement.

NY Sales Tax (4%): $0.25
County Sales Tax (3.75%): $0.23
MTA Tax (0.375%): $0.02

Airfare, JFK-BEG

Airfare taxes: a cornucopia of itemization. Let's break it down for one round-trip ticket ($603):

Airport Fee: 34.04
Int'l Passenger Service Charge: 22.03
Airport Tax (FR): 20.00
Int'l Passenger Service Charge: 18.22
US International Transportation Tax (arrival): 16.30
US International Transportation Tax (departure): 16.30
US INS User Fee: 7.00
US Customs User Fee: 5.50
US APHIS Fee: 5.00
USA Passenger Facility Charge: 4.50
Security charge (BEG): 4.41
USA Passenger Civil Aviation Security Service Fee: 2.50

If you're wondering, yes fees are considered taxes for the purpose of this blog. A tax is basically a fee based on the percentage of a total, whereas flat fees (such as the 9/11 security fee) don't make sense as a percentage, but per person. This blog is keeping track of any money on top of a transaction collected by a government agency. Of course I'll break out foreign taxes from state and federal taxes at the end of the year.

I'll be explaining these taxes in future posts.

Tire

Got a small gash in one of my car tires recently; decided to have it replaced. And that means not only shelling out for the tire, but sales tax and a tire fee.

What's this state tire fee about? It's a flat $2.50 fee on all new tires sold within New York State. $2.25 of it is surrendered back to the state for tire conservation and recycling efforts. It covers all new tires: those sold individually, with a new car, for trailers, and even temporary tires (spares). Originally, this fee was due to expire in December 2010, but it was extended through 2013 at the same rate.

NY Tire Fee: $2.50
NY Sales Tax (4%): $5.45
County Sales Tax (3.75%): $5.11
MTA Tax (0.375%): $0.51

Kicking It Off with Sales Tax

Couldn't go 3 days into the new year without buying something... some button-cell batteries for a project of mine.

The receipt has one line for "Tax" reads "$0.32", but it actually breaks down three ways:

NY Sales Tax (4%): $0.16
County Sales Tax (3.75%): $0.15
MTA Tax (0.375%): $0.01

But breaking it out per blog post is tedious, so I'll just record 8.125% and break it out during the monthly summaries.

It Starts...

Sometime in 2010, I got to wondering how much I really paid in taxes. Determining the amount of income tax is easy -- just a glance at my state and federal tax returns -- but total taxes is quite tricky to know for sure. Estimates are fine, but what I'd really like to know is the exact amount, how it's broken down between different types of taxes and how much of my net (post-income tax) salary goes toward other taxes.

My solution? Start a blog and log every sales, gas, transit, and excise tax I pay. I also plan do do a little research on what all these other types of taxes are and learn something about them while I pay them.

This will not be an exciting blog. But, in full disclosure, I am an IRS-certified tax preparer, which makes me kind of a tax nerd.