And now, the tone deaf folks at NJ Division of Taxation
Whoever is running the Twitter account for the New Jersey Division of Taxation is drunk. Or perhaps they have a medical marijuana card.
For starters, just read the grammatical horror show that’s in the description of just what, exactly, the @nj_taxation Twitter is. This is what’s there: “We administer the State’s tax laws uniformly,equitably, & efficiently.” First of all, it’s lower-case “s” in
“state” and let’s drop a space between the comma after “uniformly” and the ampersand is just a touch too casual for a department we all hate.
OK.
Then there’s the baseball trivia tweet that, as of this writing, has no answer and spells Mark McGwire’s name wrong. (They wrote “McGuire,” and the answer to the question is Tommy John.) Also: Why is the New Jersey Division of Taxation tweeting baseball trivia questions?
Then, there’s the biggest indicator of the drunkenness of the Twitter admin. It was this tweet, from a week ago: “Pumpkins used for decoration are subject to Sales Tax. Pumpkins used for food or in food preparation are tax free.”
First off, again with the capitalization. “Sales Tax” is not to be capitalized. Someone buy the tax guys an AP Stylebook, please. Secondly - and yes, I know I’m a bit late to the party here - but …
OK, three things on this “secondly” bit of business …
1) Why are any pumpkins taxed? It’s a food.
2) A-ha! But decorative pumpkins are not a food, and thus subject to tax. But why would a pumpkin seller bring this point up to a pumpkin purchaser? And if they did bring it up, why would said pumpkin purchaser cop to using the pumpkin for decorative purposes? And what about a pumpkin I use for decorative purposes, but in the carving process I decide to roast the seeds? Hmmm? THEN WHAT?
And lastly, and most importantly,
3) Why in the name of Charlie Brown would the New Jersey Division of Taxation see fit to tweet out this factoid to all of their - ahem - 785 followers, which amounts to (this is the real number) .000088% of the state’s population, or about one out of every 11,000 residents, meaning there’s roughly 34 people in Mercer County following this account (great Twitter game, @nj_taxation, and why the hell wouldn’t you capitalize the “nj” there? {banging head against keyboard} but anyway …)
But anyway, yes? Why would you tweet out such a tone-deaf piece of information to a populace that is overtaxed to begin with? Is there anything sadder than a two-income family barely making ends meet with their three kids and their two used cars and their one dog having to fork over an extra 6.625% for a damn pumpkin? No. There is not anything sadder.
Besides which, can you imagine someone from out of state, thinking about moving here, seeing this tweet? What a disaster. It would be like taking a girl out on a first date and telling her about your butt acne over drinks. It’s a deal breaker, in short.
Side note: I expect it to be only a matter of time before @nj_taxation starts tweeting about butt acne.
TX Tagline:Jeff Edelstein is a columnist for The Trentonian. He can be reached at jedelstein@ trentonian.com, facebook.com/ jeffreyedelstein and @jeffedelstein on Twitter.