Government Efficiency


  • Garbage Person

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    Note the outage notification for emissions inspection self-service kiosks. But NOT THE DAMNED WEBSITE.


  • Garbage Person

    Related:
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    Apparently the minimum title tax is negative.
    Additionally, "based on fair market value" is not correct. It's FMV for vehicles newer than 10 years old. They use book value.
    For anything that doesn't have a book value because it's obscure, or anything over 10 years old, they go by purchase price. I once had a debate about what the hell the purchase price actually means, once. I was contending it should be $888, because I wouldn't have been allowed to leave with the car if I hadn't paid $888, and I hadn't paid tax on any of it prior. They were contending it should be $550 because that's what the "Vehicle" line item on the (out of state auction) invoice said.

    I WAS OFFERING THEM TO GIVE THEM EXTRA MONEY AND THEY DECLINED.



  • @weng said in Government Efficiency:

    I WAS OFFERING THEM TO GIVE THEM EXTRA MONEY

    TR:wtf: spotted!


  • Banned

    @weng As a Pole, I'd be very surprised if the price on invoice wasn't significantly lower than what you paid.



  • @weng Say what you want about Tim Eyman, but simplifying Washington State's license tabs were definitely a good move.

    Why are you commemorating a bay? Isn't that more like a natural geological feature and less like a historical event? "We're here to commemorate this hill! Its, uh, existing, I guess! It hasn't somehow magically disappeared in the last million years, so commemoration!!!"



  • E_TITLE_NOT_FOUND



  • @weng said in Government Efficiency:

    Related:
    0_1500212889128_789a8afc-727e-4d0d-8db7-e6cb2ed89f5f-image.png

    Apparently the minimum title tax is negative.
    Additionally, "based on fair market value" is not correct. It's FMV for vehicles newer than 10 years old. They use book value.
    For anything that doesn't have a book value because it's obscure, or anything over 10 years old, they go by purchase price. I once had a debate about what the hell the purchase price actually means, once. I was contending it should be $888, because I wouldn't have been allowed to leave with the car if I hadn't paid $888, and I hadn't paid tax on any of it prior. They were contending it should be $550 because that's what the "Vehicle" line item on the (out of state auction) invoice said.

    I WAS OFFERING THEM TO GIVE THEM EXTRA MONEY AND THEY DECLINED.

    On the slim chance that you can attribute intelligence to a DMV, it might be that they know how much time and effort it will take to deal with you coming back in two years and complaining about how you paid $20 more than you should have.


  • Garbage Person

    @blakeyrat said in Government Efficiency:

    @weng Say what you want about Tim Eyman, but simplifying Washington State's license tabs were definitely a good move.

    Why are you commemorating a bay? Isn't that more like a natural geological feature and less like a historical event? "We're here to commemorate this hill! Its, uh, existing, I guess! It hasn't somehow magically disappeared in the last million years, so commemoration!!!"

    Eh, the extra fee goes to a conservation fund. Between the 3 states with influence over the environment of the Chesapeake (Pennsylvana, Maryland, Virginia) the only one that doesn't get outwardly rapacious is Maryland.

    I'll allow it. Otherwise, it'd be a giant stinking cesspit that doesn't support life.

    Instead of it's current state of 'giant stinking brackish hellhole that barely supports life'


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @weng said in Government Efficiency:

    I WAS OFFERING THEM TO GIVE THEM EXTRA MONEY AND THEY DECLINED.

    You were offering extra money for the state. The worker wouldn't see any of that and he might have to explain the discrepancy. And then the WaPo would do an exposé on how the state is ripping off its citizens.

    Instead we just get a paragraph on TDWTF.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @weng said in Government Efficiency:

    Eh, the extra fee goes to a conservation fund. Between the 3 states with influence over the environment of the Chesapeake (Pennsylvana, Maryland, Virginia) the only one that doesn't get outwardly rapacious is Maryland.

    Eh? How so? I thought they were all pretty bad until a few decades ago or something.


  • Garbage Person

    @boomzilla said in Government Efficiency:

    @weng said in Government Efficiency:

    Eh, the extra fee goes to a conservation fund. Between the 3 states with influence over the environment of the Chesapeake (Pennsylvana, Maryland, Virginia) the only one that doesn't get outwardly rapacious is Maryland.

    Eh? How so? I thought they were all pretty bad until a few decades ago or something.

    PA gives precisely zero fucks about what goes into the Susquehanna River. Not a single one.

    VA does as little as possible to restrict crabbing and fishing in their waters.

    MD used to be quite bad but has shaped up over the past few decades. Pollution controls are HUGE and the crabbing and fishing industries are subject to rather extreme limits to keep populations up. There's a lot more money at stake economically in MD, and since almost the entirety of the bay is within the confines of Maryland, they get to bear the almost the entirety of the cost of intervention and upkeep.

    TLDR: Externalities and state governance.


  • sekret PM club

    @weng said in Government Efficiency:

    PA gives precisely zero fucks about what goes into the Susquehanna River. Not a single one.

    Can confirm. Susquehanna runs right by the city I live outside, and it's widely remarked as "If you swim in it you'll come out with a third eye or leg".



  • @gąska said in Government Efficiency:

    @weng As a Pole, I'd be very surprised if the price on invoice wasn't significantly lower than what you paid.

    Isn't it the other way around for those sweet, sweet fraudulent tax returns?



  • This thread title strikes me as a bit of an oxymoron...


  • Banned

    @maciejasjmj said in Government Efficiency:

    @gąska said in Government Efficiency:

    @weng As a Pole, I'd be very surprised if the price on invoice wasn't significantly lower than what you paid.

    Isn't it the other way around for those sweet, sweet fraudulent tax returns?

    If you buy as a business, you want high invoices. If you sell as a business or buy as a private person, you want it to be low because no one gets returns, only taxes to pay. Under 3000zł there's no tax at all - good to know when buying under 5000.


  • FoxDev

    @e4tmyl33t said in Government Efficiency:

    "If you swim in it you'll come out with a third eye

    0_1500465819249_85a448ea-4200-4fd0-8984-c1d7dd24912f-image.png



  • @weng said in Government Efficiency:

    Related:
    0_1500212889128_789a8afc-727e-4d0d-8db7-e6cb2ed89f5f-image.png

    Apparently the minimum title tax is negative.

    i don't see any negative sign in there. but it might be optional or implied or something like that. or, which would make sense, “this tax is 6% (which will be at least xyz dollars in your case, fyi) "


  • FoxDev

    @sh_code said in Government Efficiency:

    i don't see any negative sign in there

    a somewhat common accounting practice is to surround negative numbers with parenthesis instead of using the negative sign. this is because that scheme makes it less likely to misinterpret numbers as negative or positive due to an ink smudge or the misinterpretation of the sign as an ink smudge



  • @accalia said in Government Efficiency:

    @sh_code said in Government Efficiency:

    i don't see any negative sign in there

    a somewhat common accounting practice is to surround negative numbers with parenthesis instead of using the negative sign. this is because that scheme makes it less likely to misinterpret numbers as negative or positive due to an ink smudge or the misinterpretation of the sign as an ink smudge

    a somewhat common practice of sarcasm meant to highlight absurdity of something is to dismiss the correct but absurd variant on the beginning and proceed to suggest a number of (slightly less, but still) absurd incorrect alternatives.

    which i probably failed to do in this case.

    and not just because you actually gave me an explanation that makes sense (at least historically).
    thank you, not understanding this quirk of accounting has been slightly bugging me for years :)


  • FoxDev

    @sh_code said in Government Efficiency:

    and not just because you actually gave me an explanation that makes sense (at least historically).
    thank you, not understanding this quirk of accounting has been slightly bugging me for years

    I suspected that it might have been bugging you. I'm glad i read through the sarcasm and was able to help you. :-)



  • @magus said in Government Efficiency:

    This thread title strikes me as a bit of an oxymoron...

    :hanzo:'d

    @anotherusername said in Government Efficiency:

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