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  1. #1
    Old Timer
    Join Date
    Jul 2005
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    Great Lakes
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    6,538

    Default Illinois to tax man for making his own fuel.

    Article courtesy of www.thenewspaper.com
    top headlines:

    Saturday, March 10, 2007
    Illinois Tax Man Hassles Biofuel Motorist
    The Illinois Department of Revenue insists David Wetzel, 79, and his wife Eileen must pay $2500 for the right to drive a 1986 Volkswagen Golf using biofuel. Bureau of Criminal Investigations unit agents Gary May and John Egan showed up at the Wetzel home on January 4 to threaten the couple with felony charges that carry up to five years in imprisonment. "I was afraid," Eileen Wetzel told the Herald and Review newspaper. "I came out of the bathroom. I thought: Good God, we paid our taxes. The check didn't bounce." The couple had committed the crime of picking up waste vegetable oil from a restaurant and using it to power their four-door hatchback. The revenue officials claimed the couple would have to apply for a fuel supplier license, designed for large businesses, and post a $2500 bond to avoid prison. They had failed to pay any gasoline tax on the restaurant byproduct. Over five years, the couple had used 1135 gallons of vegetable oil worth $244.24 in taxes if paid at the 21.5 cent diesel fuel rate. Last week, the Illinois state Senate Revenue Committee unanimously voted to amend state law to allow motorists to use restaurant byproducts for personal, non-commercial use. The full state Senate and House must approve the measure before it could become law.
    Source: State makes big fuss over local couples vegetable oil car fuel (Decatur Herald and Review (IL), 3/1/2007)

  2. #2
    Old Timer
    Join Date
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    Default think

    I think it's wrong that this poor couple will now be taxed unfairly. Can't the govt keep their hands out of these poor individuals lives?

  3. #3
    Yoda of Radar
    Join Date
    Nov 2005
    Location
    NY
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    11,015

    Default

    This happened to a guy in New York... but the case was even more outlandish:


    He used the fuel to heat his home/business and the city he was living in fined him because the gas company (the only one that serves the town so supplies everyone) turned him in for not buying enough from them... then the city pulled up a sanction from years ago and said 'he fell under the non-commercial use' somehow...

    So he can't use it anymore, they will let him get rid of the stuff that he still has (after threatening major legal action against him), but the problem is he has to buy all new heating equipment for his home/business that runs on the gas from the gas company, instead of all the equipment he bought to make them run on the oil.


    Sad really... the guy may lose his business simply because he wont have enough $$ to change everything over.


    (Note: thats not the exact details of the story just the jist of what I remember seeing)

 

 

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