Florida

I Pay 6% More on Internet Purchases!

I'm going to start selling products over the web, so I recently acquired a Florida sales and use tax permit that requires I collect sales taxes and file quartertly payments. In my first filing yesterday, I discovered that Florida residents are required to pay a 6 percent use tax on all retail purchases they make over the Internet with companies outside the state, unless the retailer includes the tax in the purchase. You're supposed to voluntarily report these purchases and submit the tax ... (read more)

2005/03/31

Florida attorney Matt Conigliaro has done an unbelievable job of reporting on the state legal issues of the Terry Schiavo case. Beginning in August 2003, a month after he began his weblog, Conigliaro has covered the subject extensively, providing a reference page that manages to be both thorough and fair, though some people would consider his respect for the legal process as an attempt to pick sides: The facts of this case are terribly sad, but they are not hard to understand. There's really ... (read more)

2005/03/28

Florida: The Election is In Your Hands

I voted in St. Johns County, Florida, this morning, a reliably Republican area that uses optical voting machines which spit mismarked paper ballots back at voters, giving you a chance to mark up a new one and try again. Few ballots were spoiled here in 2000 and the same process is in place this year. Much to my amazement, the "A-C" precinct worker checking my identification hesitated before giving me a ballot, challenging my signature. My penmanship has been in steady decline since I began ... (read more)

2004/11/02

The Bench is Back

This entry represents the culmonation of several weeks of work moving Workbench from Radio UserLand to software that I am writing for myself on a LAMP platform (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP).This has been an eventful month. I was the first person to evacuate Florida for Hurricane Frances, taking my family all the way to Northern Virginia almost two full days before it made landfall. My excessive caution was rewarded by a drive home through South Carolina as the storm hit that state, spawning ... (read more)

2004/09/30