No Sales Tax for Teachers

[Alpha Mare]

from a DUmmy who doesn't understand deductions anyway.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=219x21571

proud2BlibKansan  (1000+ posts)        Sun Mar-14-10 12:54 AM
Original message
How about a sales tax exemption for teachers?
 Most people who don't teach don't understand that the first cut made when school funding is reduced is classroom supplies. So teachers have to buy their own supplies. I haven't had a supply budget in years. Everything on my desk - pens, pencils, paper, paper clips, tape, stapler, markers - I paid for myself.

And I buy the stuff my kids need as well. Pencils, notebooks, crayons, colored pencils. I can't remember the last time I went to a store and didn't walk out without pencils.
 
If states are going to cut our school budgets, meaning even more teachers will be buying pencils every time they go in a store, why should we have to pay sales tax? It's the least the state can do. In my state, farmers don't have to pay sales tax. And the farmers in Kansas are among the wealthiest farmers in the country. We're the breadbasket. I lost track of how many farmers have discovered natural gas and oil on their land. So we aren't talking about a group of poor farmers who need a break on sales tax so they can afford to feed their families. But they get that sales tax exemption!

It's a FarmUse exemption, DUmmy. They still pay sales tax on non-agricultural items.

hatesthegop  (62 posts)      Sun Mar-14-10 12:57 AM
Response to Original message
1. I whole heartedly agree
 **** all the preferential treatment for Military and Cops...most of them are just a bunch of warmongigers or Nazi wannabe's anyway...help those who actually provide a service to society...TEACHERS!!!!
 

Yupster (1000+ posts)      Sun Mar-14-10 01:27 AM
Response to Reply #5
12. I can only speak for the Texas Teacher Retirement system
 but a teacher puts in the same percentage as anyone else puts into social security.

If a teacher works 35 years and retires, and makes the same amount of money over their career as a salesman, the teacher will get a pension right about triple the salesman's, though they both put the same amount of money into their retirement systems. That is very much preferential treatment.

If a kid loses his mom or dad and gets a check from social security, we all chip in to pay that kid a check from social security -- well we all do except teachers that is since they are not part of the system. And if a kid is disabled, we all chip in to help him with an SSI check -- all of us except teachers that is. Again, preferetial treatment.
You think doctors might like to carve themselves out of social security and just set up their own system?

What about stock brokers?

Of course they don't have that right.

Only teachers do, because they get preferential treatment.

And by the way, many people buy materials for work, not just teachers.

And I taught in the public schools for ten years.

yodoobo  (1000+ posts)      Sun Mar-14-10 01:11 AM
Response to Original message
6. teachers already get a tax credit.
 Much better than a deduction.

Dollar for Dollar tax credit up to $250 for school supplies. That credit also applys to that state sales tax that is paid on the purchase.

Keep those pencils receipts and give'm to your tax person. You get 100% of those amounts back.
 
 proud2BlibKansan  (1000+ posts)        Sun Mar-14-10 01:13 AM
Response to Reply #6
8. I spend ten times that amount every year 
 I also believe that tax credit expired and was not renewed.

yodoobo  (1000+ posts)
It was definitely available in 2009, but you might be right about it expiring in 2010, but I'm sure that Obama will extend it.

proud2BlibKansan  (1000+ posts)        Sun Mar-14-10 01:24 AM
Response to Reply #10
11. Didn't get it last year or the year before 
 Like I said, it expired. Bush wouldn't renew it. I remember because we all wrote letters asking him not to let it lapse. 
 

No, proud2Bstupid, it didn't expire. You just didn't use it.
Tax Tip: Classroom expenses that exceed $250  may be deducted as an employment-related miscellaneous itemized deduction for taxpayers who itemize.

[Chris]

from a DUmmy who doesn't understand deductions anyway.

A mind is a terrible thing to waste.

[Alpha Mare]

yodoobo  (1000+ posts)      Sun Mar-14-10 12:56 AM
Response to Reply #11
15. Form 1040 - line 23
 We took the deduction for 2009
definitely didn't expire for my spouse.
 
 proud2BlibKansan  (1000+ posts)        Sun Mar-14-10 01:12 AM
Response to Reply #15
19. My accountant said it was expired
 A piddly $250 isn't going to make much difference anyway. 
 
 yodoobo  (1000+ posts)      Sun Mar-14-10 01:27 AM
Response to Reply #19
20. well alrighty then....
 
But that piddly $250 is exactly what you were asking for when you started the thread (the value of a sales tax exemption on $2500)

interesting conversion 

  Welcome to Kansas, yodoobo. 

[formerlurker]

I can't begin to tell you how much I spend on my children's classrooms for supplies, etc. every year.   I want a dollar for dollar tax cut also.   

[NHSparky]

Gee, why don't we give other folks a sales tax exemption, like AD military while we're at it?  Start with one "protected class", and pretty soon EVERYONE is going to want to form one of their own.

Or maybe, you ri-tards can get your shit in one sock, show some fiscal responsibility, and limit sales taxes, or like me, live in a state which doesn't have them.

Just sayin!

[miskie]

There is just no way this person is spending more than $2500.00 a year on school supplies, unless they are buying from some overpriced earth-first type organization to get eco-friendly trash.

Two words primitive --

Dollar Store.

[Splashdown]

Teachers DO get exemptions...you can write off classroom supplies on your federal income tax. Up to $250, I think.

[GOBUCKS]

DUmmies lie, all the time. Even DUmmy grandmothers, and especially DUmmy union schoolteachers, lie all the time. I haven't tried it, but I'll bet I could take $2500 to WalMart and fill a dump truck with school supplies. DUmmy P2B could bury her little urban warriors in paste and pencils. But of course, she's lying and has never given a kid a free pencil in her life.

[BadCat]

The $250 exemption HAS been cut, but it wasn't Bush that cut it.

2009 is the last filing year you can use it.

[Chris_]

Actually, here in Missouri, the second weekend in August is a "tax holiday" for school supplies.......you can buy school supplies, kids clothing, and even computers and peripherals (with no dollar limit) completely free of sales tax.......and you don't have to be a "teacher" to do it.....

NOTE TO: proud2Blibkansan.......just drive across the state line.......it works for Kansas residents as well.....

doc

[The Village Idiot]

Actually, here in Missouri, the second weekend in August is a "tax holiday" for school supplies.......you can buy school supplies, kids clothing, and even computers and peripherals (with no dollar limit) completely free of sales tax.......and you don't have to be a "teacher" to do it.....

We have that in Texas too.

[BEG]

The list of items we have to buy for ours kids grows every year. They also ask for extra of each item for those who can't afford it.  Which I do and don't mind doing. I don't believe the OP who said she buys the kids pencils, notebooks, crayons etc. My daughters list this last year called for three boxes of pencils, there is no way she will ever use all of the pencils unless she loses a pencil every other day. I don't doubt that teachers buy the kids items here and there but the need to be a martyr by the OP leads to her stretching the truth a bit.