- Drug Tax Stamps – In at least 23 states there is a tax on illegal drugs. When you buy an illegal drug, like marijuana or even moonshine, in Tennessee, you have 48 hours to report it to the Department of Revenue to pay your tax and get a stamp for the substance. No identification is needed, though there are a dozen cop cars sitting outside the office. (Just kidding about the cop cars, I have no idea)
- North Carolina has had a illegal drug tax stamp law in place for 15 years, only 79 people have purchased stamps since 1990 (most of those were stamp collectors, or complete and utter morons).
- If the law sounds absurd, it’s only because of the way it was worded. The real end result is that people are taxed on drugs found in their possession when they’re busted. This creates a new revenue stream for the state or county and I can’t say I can argue with that.
- “Jock tax” – Levied on athletes who earn an income competing in a particular city or state. California first levied this tax on athletes from Chicago in 1991 after the Chicago Bulls beat the LA Lakers in the 1991 NBA Finals. What a bunch of sore losers.
- Alabama has a 10 cent tax on a deck of playing cards.
- Blueberries from Maine are subject to specific tax too, anyone who grows, purchases, sells, handles, or processes blueberries in Maine has to pay a penny and a half tax per pound.
- “Fountain soda drinks” in Chicago are taxed at 9%, if it comes in a bottle or can then it’s only taxed at 3%.
- Peter the Great in Russia once taxed beards (he doesn’t do much taxing anymore). There was also a tax on souls, hats, boots, beehives, basements, chimneys, food, clothing, birth, marriage, and burial.
- In the UK, everyone under the age of 75 pays a TV license fee £126.50 for color TVs and £42.00 for black and white TVs (it in part pays for state run networks like the BBC). If you are legally blind, you only owe half that fee.
- According to the UK’s Tax Avoidance Schemes Regulations 2006, “it is illegal not to tell the taxman anything you don’t want him to know, though you don’t have to tell him anything you don’t mind him knowing.” What!?
- Royal Navy ships that enter the Port of London must pay a barrel of rum in tax to the Constable of the Tower of London.
- Source: http://www.bargaineering.com/articles/50-fun-facts-about-taxes.html
