I was at work the other day and noticed that our fountain soda boxes (the kind that you hook up to a pump & feed out to a machine) have on the upper left corner 'WV $4.00' printed on them. I was wondering if anyone knew if that meant $4.00 for returning the box to be recycled, or if that was the cost to have it refilled?

It is a tax. West Virginia charges an excise tax on soft drinks (two other state do as well). In the old days, payment of the tax on bulk product containers was evidenced by a stamp, like a postage stamp, that bottlers had to buy from the state and then afix to the packaging. This was cumbersome and about 15 years ago the botters were permitted to just put "WV $ whatever" on the containers in return for giving the state computer access to their sales records, so that they could be regulated.

BTW, unless you are in WV, you are not paying the tax. The marking just indicates that the botter participates in the computer system. If the product was sold elsewhere, no tax is paid.

The tax is unfair. 100% of it goes to northern WV's medical school, at WVU. The other two state medical schools receive no funding from it, despite people from all over the state paying it.

Thank you! That was really helpful . I've been looking all over online and not finding much. I really appreciate it!

First of all hello, I'm new to the forums. Second of all just to be clear, the $4 isn't like the 5c you see on soda cans that means you can turn it in somewhere for money? I'm in the same situation as you Snoochi, I've been collecting them the past few weeks until I could get this mystery solved.

Appreciate the help