Slicing a bagle in NY before selling it to customer? That's a tax.

[The Straight Story]

Bagelers decry New York schmear tactics

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Any way you slice your bagel, if you slice it in New York, it's going to cost you more.

New York State tax officials are enforcing a sales tax for sliced or prepared bagels (with cream cheese or other toppings), along with whole bagels eaten in the store, according to the state Department of Taxation and Finance.

Whole bagels sold for takeout are not subject to sales tax, but "any handling or preparation at the shop turns it into a taxable event," says Brad Maione, a spokesperson for the DTF.

Although Maione says the sales tax is not a new provision and that the stepped up enforcement is due to better technology, bagel-store owners say the tax was news to them.

http://money.cnn.com/2010/08/25/smallbusiness/bagel_tax/index.htm?hpt=Mid

[whyverne]

1. Yeah, that's the way it is. Food you buy to eat at home

is not taxable. Food you eat out and prepared food is taxable. Stop with the kvetching.

[Recursion]

2. Groceries vs. meals, right?

Makes sense to me.

[Codeine]

3. Prepared food is normally taxed. No biggie. nt

[Xipe Totec]

4. What about sliced bread?

How does one distinguish between sliced bread and sliced bagels for tax purposes?

How does one distinguish between take out food and doggie-bag food for tax purposes? Can we get a tax refund on the part of the meal we don't eat at a restaurant?

It gets murky once you try to define what prepared means.

[Pab Sungenis]

5. Method of manufacture.

Pre-sliced bread and pre-sliced bagels (if there are such beasties) are manufactured that way before being shipped to the supermarket.

If a bakery only sold pre-sliced bagels, they might have a case.

Sales tax laws can get nebulous. I don't know if it's still the case, but in 2006 New Jersey ruled that while candy was taxable, candy bars with gluten in them were legally considered bread products and were tax-exempt. In a weird twist, that meant that under state tax law, Twizzlers were officially a bread.

On edit: I think it must still be the case, because I remember recently buying a frozen pizza at the supermarket and it was tax-exempt. The gluten in the dough, I suppose.

[Mugweed]

9. When I go to the Publix bakery and ask them to slice the bread

it doesn't end up being taxed. The bread was a whole loaf, in the bag ready for sale. When I take it to the counter and ask them to slice it, they don't change the status to make it a taxable item. What makes this different from what happens with a bagel?

[Ikonoklast]

10. Transubstantiation.

Man does not live by bread alone...that's why there's beer.

[LostinVA]

11. Aren't groceries already taxed in FL?

They were the year I lived there. Just like in NC and VA.

[DrDan]

6. you are not buying a loaf of bread - but a collection of bread slices

(I have no idea - obviously)

[old mark]

7. Same here in PA. If yopu take it home to prepare and eat it's food and not taxed.

If you get it sliced and toasted with a little schmear and tomato, it's a restaurant meal and taxable.
The idea is (supposedly) that everyone has to eat, but to eat in a restaurant is a luxury...I guess this means the poor should eat at home.


mark

[fasttense]

8. Here in TN they tax all the food you buy in the grocery store but...

If you buy produce directly from the farmer, there is no tax.

Prepared food items like bread and jellies bought from a farmer may have a tax. If prepared foods are 51% or more of the Farmer's items for sale then there is a tax, if it is 50% or less, there is no tax. At least that is how our Farmer's Market runs.

So buy produce directly from a local farmer. It is cheaper.

[Javaman]

12. How do I become a begal cop?

"sorry lady, but that was an improperly prepared begal, I'm going to have to take it for questioning and eating".