Bottle Deposit Oddity

[KEVIN_224]

Something strange as I was returning a bottle of water for the 5 cents here in CT:

The bottle was coded as "WV - 1 CENT".

Say what?

[jp the roadgeek]

Just looked at a couple of different brands of bottled water I have and didn't see it on either.  Furthermore, WV doesn't have a bottle deposit from what I've Googled.  I have seen things on cans and bottles that look like a little shape of WV with a 1 inside it.  Turns out it's essentially a tax stamp

http://appalachianmagazine.com/2016/01/06/why-is-the-outline-of-west-virginia-printed-on-the-top-of-aluminum-cans/

[SP Cook]

It is not a deposit.  It is a tax, as outlined above.  Significantly, it supports only one of the state's three medical schools and only one of the state's 16 nursing schools.   

Remember it is a excise tax per measure, not price, which means inflation has eroded its impact.  When they passed it nearly 70 years ago it was like 20% of the price.  Today it is like 0.5% of the price.   

In any event, bottled unflavored water should not be taxed.  But the presence of the symbol does not mean it actually got taxed, today it is all done in the computers, if you see the symbol outside the state, it really did not get taxed, and v-v.  I can remember when fountains had a place where actual stamps, like postage stamps, had to be placed to indicate the tax had been paid.