Understanding taxes when buying goods at a store
"Grocery food is not subject to sales tax in Maryland, but some food is taxed depending on category or preparation. So you must have had a combination of grocery and taxable foods. One of the cheaper items you purchased was subject to a whopping penny of sales tax. http://taxes.marylandtaxes.com/Individual_Taxes/Taxpayer_Assistance/Individual_Tax_FAQs/Use_Tax_FAQs/q4.shtml In general, food sales are subject to Maryland's 6 percent sales and   use tax unless a person operating a substantial grocery or market   business sells the food for consumption off the premises and the food   is not a taxable prepared food. A grocery or market business is   considered to be ""substantial"" if the sales of grocery or market food   items total at least 10 percent of all food sales." States have made sales tax more confusing by expanding some categories and shrinking or eliminating other categories. In days of old there were taxes on items, and specific taxes on other small categories such as fuel and cigarets . In many states there were taxes implemented state wide, and in other cases they only applied to a specific city or region. As time went on taxes could be raised to bring in more money for the state or local government, but these tax increase were seen as unfair to the poor. So now the states are modifying and tweaking the tax rates. Some items are tax free, some have a low tax, and some are at the full tax rate. This can get confusing because the type of store can also play a factor. A bag a chips from a grocery store can be treated  differently than a bag of chips from a hotdog stand. Some states have also added special taxes on snack foods. In general, purchases they want to encourage (staples from the grocery store) are tax free or low tax, items they don't want to encourage (snacks) are fully taxed. You can also be sure that they will treat luxury items as fully taxed. A new frontier of taxation are ones designed to tax people who don't live there. They have added taxes on restaurants and  hotels. Since they are paid by tourists, the people most likely to pay them don't have a voice in setting the rate.  States are now wanting to tax services as a way to make up shortfalls in taxing.  Don't expect consistency from state to state, or year to year.  Oh by the way that penny tax was for something that cost 17 cents or less, unless that item had a lower tax rate. The receipt should clearly identify the taxable items, and their tax level.
Since then I wanted to move out of this house because the property taxes are so high and the mortgage payment is a killer. As I understand this is a property jointly owned by your parents and you. As they are not living staying in the house, you have taken over the mortgage payments for this house along with any other maintenance. If you move out of this house; the rent is expected to cover the cost of maintenance and mortgage payments. Are we better of staying in Jersey where our family and friends are?  This is an individual decision. It is not just family and friends, but also schooling of kids, penitentially if you change jobs would it also entail changing residence as the workplace would be more near from current home than the new home. I want to convince my wife to make this move because it will save us at least 800 month, but she fails to see how buying a second home is financially sound because we have to lose our savings and we have to pay interest on our second home. There are quite a few posts on first-time-home-buyer Some question like this one and this one and this one are good reads. There are historically times when the Mortgage EMI becomes equal or less than Rent paid. In such times it is good to buy home, than pay rent. Otherwise quite a few invest advisor's mention that fools buy house and wise live in it. There are advantages to buying as well advantages to renting. There is no simple answer and it depends on multitude of factors. Generally speaking, buying a fancy new car out of college is dumb. Buying a 3 year old flashy car with a 60 month loan is going to eat up your income, and when the thing starts breaking down, you'll get sick of buying $900 mufflers and $1,000 taillights pretty quickly. Buy a car that nobody wants for cheap and save up some money. Then buy yourself your dream car. Edit based on question update. You're posting to a Q&A site about money, and you're asking if spending over $30k (don't forget taxes) on a luxury car when you're making $60k is a good idea. You have car fever, and you're trying to sell this transaction as a good deal from a financial POV. At the end of the day, there is no scenario where buying an expensive car is a good financial transaction.  For example, since you're planning on driving too many miles for a lease to make sense, the certified pre-owned warranty is a non-factor, because you'll have no warranty when the car breaks down in 4 years. The only reason CPO programs exist is to boost residual values to make leases more attractive -- luxury car makers are in the car leasing (as opposed to selling) business. Why do people buy them when they would be cheap to make for themselves? Convenience. While you could easily find some pictures and lay them out with a sentiment, buy some card stock, print in colour, trim it, and perhaps glue on some glitter or whatnot, and then find an envelope that fits it, it's likely to take you an hour or more to do so. And you'll invest far more than $6 on your printer and various inventories. I made cards for my kids- we had construction paper, glitter, coloured markers etc and there was no need for an envelope. But most people will find it quicker and simpler to buy one fully assembled. The cost of the online ones is weird I agree. Perhaps people are also not confident they can compose a good greeting? Why do stores stock $6 cards that they buy for $3 (retail markup is 50-100% and I'm sure it's closer to 100% for cards) when a different supplier might provide them for $2? Well, even if such a supplier existed, I'm sure the store would be happy to sell for $6 still (see: people buy them) so there would be no consumer impact. A store that sells cards for $5 isn't going to siphon customers from elsewhere because most of us just don't buy cards often enough for it to matter.  Why does nobody become that supplier who will sell them cheaper? Selling stuff is more expensive than making stuff, and getting your product into retail stores is hard. Hard means time and time means money and all of that contributes more to the card price than the ink and paper do. That said, dollar stores sell cards, for a dollar typically, and people do buy them. I find they have less colours and the artwork is cruder. Perhaps you even get what you pay for when it comes to design, layout, printing etc. When our 20yo Sony Trinitron died I researched all the Audio/Video forums and the consensus was that Panasonic Plasmas have the best picture. When I went into the department store to buy one they had a Panasonic and a Samsung LCD on display right next to each other and the difference in quality was noticeable (Samsung was noticeably better). At the time I had never really considered Samsung to be any good, but the quality and sharpness of the Samsung is undeniable. It actually took me two days to get over my cognitive dissonance and buy the Samsung because up until then I was 100% determined to buy the Panasonic. They are also the only brand that I have seen with little to no artifacts. Samsung is this generations Sony. "What they are doing is wrong. The IRS and the state might not be happy with what they are doing.  One thing you can ask for them to do is to give you a credit card for business and travel expenses. You will still have to submit receipts for expenses, but it will also make it clear to the IRS that these checks are not income. Keep the pay stubs for the year, or the pdf files if they don't give you a physical stub. Pay attention to the YTD numbers on each stub to make sure they aren't sneaking in the expenses as income. If they continue to do this, ask about ownership of the items purchased, since you will be paying the tax shouldn't you own it?  You can in the future tell them ""I was going to buy X like the customer wanted, but I just bought a new washer at home and their wasn't enough room on the credit card. Maybe next month""" "I'm thinking about visiting the UK and I'm wondering which things are affected by the VAT and which are not. Most consumer goods are subject to VAT at the standard rate. Most food sold in shops is zero-rated, with the exception of a handful of luxury foods. Food in cafes/restaurants and some takeaway food is subject to VAT at the standard rate. Most paper books are zero rated (IIRC books that come with CDs are an exception).  Some services are exempt, insurance is a notable one, so are some transactions with charities. Some small buisnesses and sole traders may not be VAT registered in which case there is no VAT for you to pay (but they can't reclaim VAT on the goods and services they buy). (there is a distinction between zero-rated and exempt but it's not relavent to you as a customer). Some goods have special rules, notably second hand goods.  Prices are normally given inclusive of VAT. The exception to this is suppliers who mostly deal in business to business transactions. Also as a non-UK resident is there a way to get a rebate/reimbursement on this tax? There is something called the ""retail export scheme"" which can get you a refund but there are a number of catches." You normally only pay taxes on the difference between the sale price and the cost basis of the asset. In your example, you would probably pay taxes on the $10 difference, not the full sale price of $110. If you paid a commission, however, you would be taxed on your gain minus the commission you paid. Since you held the asset for less than a year, you wouldn't pay the long-term capital gains rate of 20%; you'd be taxed on the capital gain as if it were ordinary income, which depends on your federal income tax bracket. Also, littleadv makes a good point about the implications of buying the asset with after-tax funds too, so that's another part of the equation to consider as well. You're not paying taxes three times but you are paying three different taxes (or more). Sales tax is a business expense, just like costs of goods sold or interest on a loan.  Then, depending on how you structure the business, the net income of the business just hits you personally and you pay income taxes.  You can work with a tax person to lend some efficiency to this on a long term basis, but it's not like you pay all the taxes against your gross receipts. Whether or not you can make this profitable is a whole different issue.