Sales taxes: Don't tread on me

I’d like to address some unfair sales tax practices.

Everyone pays sales tax on items they buy retail in Idaho. They may not notice anything unusual about paying sales tax on propane, wood pellets and labor, all of which are tax-exempt.

Idaho and many other states do not charge sales tax on labor, but I have recently realized that many retailers are charging sales tax on labor by combining and hiding labor costs in the final price.

I have had propane bottles refilled for the barbecue and small heating devices. Some local retailers have been charging sales tax on propane, which is not taxable when used for heating or cooking. When I asked if they charge sales tax on wood pellets for stoves, they’ve claimed, “That’s different, it’s used for heating.” Tell me what the difference is then. Why do they charge sales tax on refilling propane bottles that are used for cooking and or heating?

You may think that it’s a small amount of tax to pay, but a small, 20-pound tank holds a little more than four gallons of liquid propane. At $2.50 a gallon, that’s 60 cents of sales tax that you are not required to pay. So why do some retailers charge sales on propane and not pellets when the Idaho code is clear? Ask your retailer next time and maybe they can explain that. I have contacted the Idaho State Tax Commission and it couldn’t care less that retailers are charging tax on non-taxable items. After all, it’s more revenue to the state.

Now let’s look at really pricy items like tires. I owned and operated a tire business for almost 12 years in another state many years ago. Then, the average radial tire was about $75, but now it’s not unusual to pay $100 or even $250 each for these much larger tires on newer vehicles. Balancing costs hover around $15 a tire. That’s a labor cost. It’s supposed to be non-taxable.

So why are tire retailers adding sales tax on balancing? That works out to about $3.60 of sales tax you should not have to pay. They can charge the tax when including the balancing in the total bill and will tell you that balancing is free so you’re not paying for it. Really, is the public that stupid? In business, there is no such thing as free, you pay for it one way or another! I don’t know how long this practice has been in existence here because I haven’t had to purchase tires for a long time, but I just realized that lately when shopping for new tires.

Again, I called the Idaho State Tax Commission and questioned this practice and if service and labor-related items are combined in the final bill versus a separate line item for labor, they can charge sales tax and the state is just happy to get the extra revenue that you don’t need to pay.

In the case of tire dealers, maybe it’s just too hard to program their computers to make a separate line item for balancing your tires — or maybe they just don’t care that you pay more. After all, it’s not their money but it certainly is yours.

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Tim Herzog lives in Post Falls.