Down with rebates

We have early voting here in Illinois, and The Rascal's going to do his duty sometime this week.

But as I mentally prepare for the task (hey, I take this stuff seriously), I find myself upset about something only indirectly related to the election.

You see, I'm voting in favor of an increase in the local sales tax to pay for road repairs. The tax does not apply to purchases of medicine, titled vehicles and store foods. But pretty much everything else is covered -- and, in some cases, over-covered.

By that, I refer to the things people buy that offer mail-in rebates. Deals like that are scams. The sellers know that lots of buyers end up forgetting about the rebate, or misplacing the documentation, or getting discouraged by the paperwork requirements.

And even if you do avail yourself of the mail-in rebate, you're getting scammed. You're paying not only for the product and the regular overhead (with a competitive markup, of course), but also for the costs of administering the rebate program. Then there's the issue of the seller's gall in essentially borrowing money from you and not paying it back for months, if ever.

Another factor here -- this is why the matter came to mind -- is that the sales tax applies to the pre-rebate price you paid for the product in the store. That's true also of so-called instant rebates. (Incidentally, the logic of instant rebates escapes me. Why not just reduce the price by the designated amount?)

Anyway, the sales tax covers the price before any kind of rebate, mail-in or instant.

Now that I've talked myself through this issue, I'm not so upset. In fact, I see a bright side to it all. I don't buy things that have rebates, and those who do will be paying a mite more in sales taxes than I would in their shoes (presuming that the referendum passes).

So, life is good, huh?