What's My Beef!

Case in point: Products with rebate offers.

Now who is the moron who invented this idea? You buy something for, say, $100. You pay 7.75 percent sales tax on it. The tax? $7.75. Now you get a rebate form to fill out, you mail it, and you get something like $50 back for example. So, the net amount of taxable product is reduced to $50, right? Right. And if the reduced price of the item is what you pay, you should pay less tax on it right? I said right?

Well, though the reduced price with rebate is $50, you're now paying an equilvent of 15.5 percent sales tax instead of the 7.75 sales tax on the $50, which is $3.88. Legally, this doesn't seem right. You're getting gouged by your state and local government on purchase prices you're not paying a tax on. What a ripoff! The government is just as bad as those power companies was.

Aside of that, it may be months, even a year, before you ever see that rebate check if they ever get around to mailing it to your house.

Now on a smaller scale, let's go to one of the trusty(?) restaurants in Kearny Mesa. I go to Burger Krap and eat their crappy "frozenish" french fries, and I get sick from them and chunder on the road. I go to the nearby Hurl's Jr. and eat their Green Burrito menu and I get nauseaous from their food. I then go to the nearby Subway shop where they were playing all that mind-numbing love songs on that station. I felt like throwing up, but I had no food in my stomach.

Anyway, I ordered a $5.49 sub, taxed hot, making it $5.90. I used a $1 coupon, making the taxable price $4.49, yet I still paid a 41 cent tax, though it should be 34 cents since the selling price was reduced. The clueless counter person had no clue how much tax you pay on a $4-$5 purchase, which is between 31 and 38 cents, so 41 cents was out of the range.

I argued with the counter person, and I was extra angry since there was crap love songs playing on their stupid intercom. Boy, were their minds as soft as the tomatoes they put in their subs from listening to that kind of music.

I went to the subway.com website and e-mailed them my complaint about the excess tax, saying the the Franchise Tax Board isn't going to like this kind of gouging. They sent me a $2 gift certificate and apologized for the experience I had at that franchise. They also shared my complaint with the regional office and the owner of the franchise I had visited.

Now, about that seven cents I was overcharged?

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