Want to build your own House of Cards? Alabama may not be the first place you want to go. Ever since 1935 Alabama levies a $0.10 tax on decks of playing cards. Section 40-12-144 Code of Alabama reads:
‘’… which sells or stores or uses packages of playing cards containing not more than 54 cards to the deck or package shall pay to the State of Alabama for state purposes only a license or privilege tax of $0.10 per package or deck, such tax to be evidenced by revenue stamps, and the stamps in all cases to be affixed to the individual package.’’
Not more than 54 cards, mind you. UNO-games, with 108 cards per deck, remain untaxed. The revenue of this tax has only been around $ 100,000 for the last reported 5 years, not including the $2 annual license fee each retailer has to pay for the privilege of selling playing cards. ATR thinks this a perfect example of a ridiculous tax and urges Alabaman legislators to fold this hand. What is next, a tax on dice and draidels?
Photo credit: Daniel Watergarden