Deimos, did you alter your identity and move to Clearwater, Florida?

http://www.wtsp.com/news/local/story.as ... 27&catid=8

nice to see some still have the passion for D&D!!!

i just came across this news clip from jan'10

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/biz ... 35469.html

The banana pie is the one that makes my stomach want to do a backflip...ugh.

I think there are some places in the US where you can still get the lobster roll, or at least there were a few years ago. Can't recall where I saw it, maybe in New England somewhere?

Yeah, that one actually doesn't sound too bad, and normally I avoid McDonald's.

I can just imagine the television commercials, "Nothing says 'I'm successful' like being seen eating a Double Beef Prosperity Burger by your coworkers from the sweatshop!"

just goes to show the opinion of what it is, STILL hasnt died off in allll this time!

course you can go watch films nowadays that have rape, murder, mutilation and god knows what else in but thats ok, and kids play video games which basically lets them go and do pretty much what they want like that. shameful!

Al

I copied this directly from a post made by "willysnout" on lonely planet - looks right to me...  

http://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/t ... 7#13428207

No Sales Tax Refunds for U.S.-Purchased Goods

Foreign visitors to the U.S. sometimes want to know how to claim sales tax refunds for things they buy here. There's one problem: With the exception of Louisiana, such refunds do not exist here. Oddly enough, Louisiana's refund program illustrates this, because it applies at some stores and within that state only.

American sales taxes are not the same as the value-added duties seen in Europe, Canada, and elsewhere. Such taxes are typically imposed at the national level, while in the U.S., sales taxes are imposed at the state level. Some states further allow localities to add additional sales taxes of their own. Many local sales taxes are imposed only on some items, the most common being hotel rooms, restaurant meals, and rental cars. It's common for hotel rooms to be taxed 10%-15%. Rental tax taxes can easily reach 25%. I've seen restaurant meal taxes as high as 10%.

Thus, rather than give tourists a break on taxes, states take the opposite tack. Visitors don't vote, so a popular means of generating revenue is to impose extra sales taxes on services that are consumed predominantly or exclusively by tourists. This is something of an American sport. Complain about it to your heart's content, just as you might complain about the American custom of tipping 15%-20% on the pretax total in a restaurant. At least the tipping is voluntary, but not the sales taxes. With the exception of the program in Louisiana, you will never get a sales tax refund in the United States.

The good news is that it's rare for there to be additional sales taxes on goods; states and localities reserve these taxes for services consumed by tourists. On the contrary, some states will exclude relatively small purchases of goods (typically clothing) from taxation, with such exemptions being applied across the board without regard to the purchaser's residence. Similarly, in grocery stores, basic food items are typically exempt from sales taxes; state laws vary on prepared foods and other items. Stores themselves will often advertise that "we pay the sales tax!" That's the equivalent of a sale discount.

If you buy an item in a store and have it shipped to another state or overseas, you will not pay sales tax. But you will pay shipping costs, and if it's sent overseas then any home-country duties will apply. Therefore, having it shipped is usually only a good deal if it's a big-ticket item. All of this stuff introduces some distortions of behavior here when tax rates differ significantly between states. Two examples that come to mind are New Hampshire and Oregon, neither of which charge sales taxes on goods. At their borders, stores in those states do a significant amount of trade with out-of-state customers.

Drat. Thanks, Lucy.

As you mentioned tipping, does that still go on much at all?

I believe New Hampshire has a sales tax. It's Delaware (my current home state) and Oregon that do not.

EDIT: Just looked it up and turns out NH also does not have sales tax. I thought there were only the 2/50. But add DE to the list.

Tips are the only way waitstaff and members of a few other occupations make any kind of living at all. Employers are allowed to pay under the minimum wage to servers, on the assumption that they will make enough from tips to recover the difference. Try stiffing a waiter at a US restaurant and see what happens.. I usually tip 20% unless there is a serious problem, but once my party somehow forgot to leave a tip, and the waitress followed us out of the place and, um, expressed her displeasure.

I'll direct people to Reservoir Dogs on my view of tipping, especially mandatory tipping, as then service is often horrible yet there is no recourse. To be especially dicky, when someone truly deserves it, I will leave them 2 cents.