Thanks to everyone who commented. Here is the latest. I read the state sales tax rules and the actual laws they are based on. (I think my head will stop spinning in a week or two.) Then I called the tax folks in Nashville and asked what was up. It boils down to this. Real property is not subject to sales tax, but personal property is. Ignoring Tennessee's 10,001 politically motivated personal property tax exemptions, contractor's who build or repair real property are not required to collect retail sales tax on their labor or the finished work, but they are required to pay sales tax on the materials they use. This means that a business supplying cabinets to a builder for a builder to install has to charge the builder sales tax for the cabinets, since the cabinets are material to the builder. However, if the cabinet business installs the cabinets, the installation comes under the real property definition, and there is no retail sales tax due. But the cabinet business must pay tax on what they paid for the cabinets, if they bought them, or the materials, if they built them. So, it looks like the cabinet business that said we would "only" have to pay 3.5% if they installed them was planning to charge us for the tax they are supposed to pay on the wholesale price of the cabinets. At least this has helped validate the close to 200% mark up on cabinets that others been posted about on GW before. We are now talking to a custom cabinet maker.

((((HUGS)))) Unfortunately, even on "nice" boards, there are times when claws, or just schadenfreude, come out. :( It's very sad, and I'm so sorry you've felt people being mean to you. I know it doesn't help at all to think "it's about them" when you were looking for a "safe" (or as safe as a public forum can be) place to discuss a delicate subject. ((((HUGS)))) States complain about lost revenue from sales taxes not being recouped, but they don't complain about the amount of commerce in general, even if it's the gas spent by the delivery trucks. When they start discussing this on the Federal level (interstate commerce), and start thinking about levying tax on internet purchase (other than the instate tax that people are used to paying), there's such an uproar, and the constituencies, both sellers and buyers, are so upset, that they drop it. The world is changing, and it's taking some time for people and modalities to catch up. Sometimes it's easier to buy a roll of masking tape online than have to hike around a big box store looking for it. People don't do that to avoid the tax! Still, sales tax is regressive. People with the least money spend the largest portion of their incomes on sales tax. They order out of state, take trips into bordering states that have no sales tax, into bordering countries where they have no tax or give it back, etc., etc. Sales tax is onerous. It's always been the law in most places that collect sales tax that you have to pay it on things brought in from out of state. In my state, it has mostly been enforced on really big items like cars. Unfortunately, a new kitchen is pretty much the equivalent of a car. But if it's in the news about your state collecting on Income Tax filings, and you've received a phone call immediately after, I agree it's probably a scam. And I agree that you would most likely have received a form letter rather than a phone call. In fact, the normal way it should happen is that first you'd receive a form letter from your state's revenue agency telling you that you were obliged to report, and then if you didn't report and they had reason to think you should have, they'd send a reminder of the things you should have reported and an option to pay the back taxes plus interest. Then you'd receive a form letter telling you about a hearing scheduled. And on like that. If your friend received a call, it should have been a recording. Live person calls are too expensive for chasing a pittance (and the amount of tax owed, even if your friend's new kitchen is even nicer than yours, is a pittance to the state coffers). You could check with the department of frauds to see if this is a known scam, and a lawyer to see if it's possibly real.

It's not a no-brainer as mojomom suggests. Only by doing two 2017 federal tax projections, one with a state tax payment acceleration (of state income and property tax, most typically) and one without, can one be sure if accelerating state tax payments produce a federal tax savings. I think the most common reason why acceleration isn't a benefit is because many people are always subject to the alternative minimum tax. I am. In other cases, the prepayment can trigger it and limit or even eliminate the benefit. It's not an all or nothing proposition. Some may have benefit from SOME of the prepayment, maybe a lot, and maybe not much at all. Who and why can't be generalized, it depends on what income and what deductions, and how much of which, will be in one's 2017 return

If your DD has decent grades and does ok on the SAT, I see no reason she shouldn’t thrive in her college of choice and then be admitted into its Nursing program. I hear a lot of ‘nurse talk‘ around our family table when our kids and families get together. One DIL is on the faculty at UAB (teaching undergrad nursing subjects) and is working on her doctorate. She runs across a few undergrads every semester that she advises to consider dropping nursing as a major, as they just don’t ’get it’. I don’t think this is going to happen with your daughter, Mtn. DD is a Nurse Practitioner in the ER, and she teaches one day a week. She has mentored several during their clinicals. She always recommends a new grad with a BSN work at least two years before continuing with their Masters so they can decide exactly what specialty they want to pursue. Clinicals definitely help with this during their final year of undergrad but the work experience is invaluable. If there had been a program available close to home, she probably would have gone to grad school to become a CRNA (Nurse Anesthetist), that’s generally where the bigger paychecks are for nurses. Our other DIL has a BSN and now is a case manager in pediatrics. She was formerly on a pediatric thoracic transplant team. She loved that job but was promoted.