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Can someone please shed some light on the legalities of this tax.
1st. If the store owner is giving me a free bag then how can the government legally interfere and tax me on it.
2.) If it is indeed taxable despite the fact that its free , then why werent stores charging tax on these bags prior to this new law?(1)A taxable transaction doesn’t require buying or selling
(2)Why would anyone charge tax on a free item if the law didn’t require it?
Plastic shopping bags are one of the worst forms of trash in our waterways and landfills. Its costs billions of dollars a year globally to clean up as well as the deaths to sea animals, birds, etc. A small tax has been shown to reduce this litter (although will not eliminate it). Even a modest reduction in this form of pollution is worth it. If you don’t want to pay the tax, bring your own bags.The supreme court has affirmed on multiple occasions the taxing authority of state and local governments to achieve their own policy objectives.
It’s not a tax, it’s a fee, more like a bottle deposit (except you don’t get it back). I doubt if there’s any prohibition against stores not charging customers (just as they can include sales tax in the price of an item). My understanding is that four cents would go to NJ and one cent to the store, so the store can probably swallow the four cents if they want to give out bags for free. Interestingly, the Sierra Club opposes the bill and the supermarket lobby supports it.
“It’s not a tax, it’s a fee… four cents would go to NJ”
So, it’s a fee that gives money to the state every time you buy something, but you don’t want to call it a tax…
So call it a tax, a fee, who cares?
As long as it’s not a sales tax, it shouldn’t run into tttt’s legal problem.
I wonder if thats a legal loophole
I doubt it. Why would it be?
This whole plastic bax tax makes zero sense legally speaking.
Don’t think of it as a sales tax, which is a percentage, so that indeed would not be applicable to free items.
Rather, it’s a fee on giving out free bags. Why is that illegal?
Some states and municipalities have already banned or put a fee on bags, and I don’t know of any that were deemed unconstitutional.
So according to your logic ,if stores now decide to charge 4 bags for a penny then the government can no longer add thier 5 cent fee because i paid for the bags??
No.
Imagine if you need everything double bagged,ouch. Wait so is the cashier going to have to ask your permission every time they need to double bag if your items are heavy? It would be so funny seeing all the hard headed protesters using only one bag and having all their groceries splatter all over the floor as the bag rips in order to rebel against the system. I’d probably be one of those people if I had to pay for plastic bags.
Whats next are they going to charge you extra for sitting down on a bus?
First off lets stop calling them free bags the store pays for them, as a cashier a customer will sometimes ask to take an extra bag and that is fine some customers try to take 10 bags as they leave this is not fine, the store expects us to use as few bags as possible and to fill them up. However i often double bag without asking if i feel it is needed, and their are different quality of bags the bag you get in say a dollar store is inferior to the bags we use. I don’t consider myself an environmentalist but plastic bags are awful for the environment, if this causes people to use reusable bags i say it is for the better. The town where i live just enacted a similar law and i know that customers will gripe about it but that is what they do best.
If you’ve ever used a milk carton in the United States you’d realize that we already have the technology to make good enough paper receptacles that are recyclable. It’s no longer about ‘Saving the Whales’: we are eating the fish that are eating the plastic we throw out.
making a fee for bags instead of taxing it makes even less sense. It’s essentially a law illegalizing presents and instead requiring a sale.
Takes2-2tango,
The law can very easily be worded so that it makes sense. I really don’t get what your issue is with this whole thing.
I agree that the law would be annoying, but I don’t think you’re making any good arguments against it.
ShmullyGreen, I have no idea what you’re talking about. What do paper milk cartons have to do with single-use plastic shopping bags? And what do fish have to do with it?
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