Confused by Pennsylvania’s quirky sales tax? You are not alone

gets complicated. There are food items that if purchased at a grocery or convenience store are nontaxable, but if purchased at a restaurant, cafeteria or the like are subject to tax.

For example, a bag of chips or package of cookies would not be taxed at the supermarket but would be taxed along with that cup of soup at a lunch counter.

Restaurants and most other places that serve ready-to-eat food are required to charge sales tax on meals and virtually everything else, including prepackaged foods and snacks sold tax-free at a grocery store, convenience store or vending machine.

The exceptions — there always seem to be exceptions — include bottled water, ice and, of course, candy and gum.

Tax on a Steelers ticket?

Marc Stier, director of the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center in Philadelphia, a left-leaning think tank and research center, said the state’s quirky, often illogical sales tax system isn’t unique.

“We aren’t alone. [Sales tax programs] are odd from state to state,” he said. Five states — Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire and Oregon — don’t even have a sales tax.

Mr. Stier believes the most inequitable part of Pennsylvania’s system is that it generally taxes goods but not services.

Hair salon services, dry cleaning services and personal services including pet care, personal trainers, dating services and body tattooing are nontaxable.

Tickets to movie theaters, sporting events and amusement parks also are exempt.

“If you buy a washing machine, you pay sales tax. If you buy detergent to put into it, you pay sales tax. But if you send your clothing to a dry cleaner, you don’t pay sales tax because that’s a service,” Mr. Stier said.

“We don’t tax business services,” he said. “If you buy a computer program in a box, it’s a good and it’s taxed. If a business buys custom-made software, there’s no tax on that.”

Mr. Stier thinks that if sales tax were applied to services, the overall rate could be lowered and would be less of a burden on lower-income families who tend to use fewer services.

“If someone can buy a $150 theater ticket or spend even more to see the Eagles play, they ought to pay a sales tax,” he said.

Grab the toilet paper

Pennsylvania’s sales tax reached the current level of 6 percent in 1968 — the year Lyndon Johnson was president and Martin Luther King Jr. and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated. Since 1994, residents of Allegheny County have had the pleasure of paying an additional 1 percent sales tax.

Mr. Wolf has tried to expand the tax to business software, Mr. Stier said. “But the people who write business software go crazy. They lobby legislators. They say, ‘You undermine our ability to compete with other states’ and they fight back.”

The governor also has unsuccessfully pushed to eliminate other exemptions to include a host of other services and products, such as movie tickets, sporting events, personal services, over-thecounter drugs, and candy and gum to help balance the budget.

In 2015, his office estimated that taxing cable television programming would bring in $260 million a year; hair, nail and skin care services, $157 million; over-thecounter drugs and vitamins, $152 million; candy and gum, $108 million; movie tickets and postproduction services, $96 million; and spectator sports, $89 million.

At the same time, Mr. Wolf proposed raising the rate from6 percent to 6.6 percent.

Even if those ideas didn’t get much traction, Mr. Stier thinks the system is overdue for an overhaul.

“In the 1950s, someone must have said mouthwash was a luxury. It’s weird,” he said.

For now, the next time you reach for a Kleenex to catch a sneeze or dab your eyes, consider using toilet tissue instead. Toilet paper isn’t taxable. But you’ll pay the toll on facial tissue, paper towels, paper napkins — and paper toilet seat covers.