State Turns to Torah to Determine Matzo Tax

In a Solomonic decision that involved study of the Torah, a California state agency has concluded that matzos are not crackers but that matzo miniatures are--at least for tax purposes.

The issue was raised last month when an attorney in the San Fernando Valley discovered that the Lucky’s supermarket chain was imposing a state food tax on matzos. The lawyer complained to the California Board of Equalization, and that agency put its lawyers to work on the matter.

Brad Sherman, who chairs the board, said his staff “pointed out that the Torah describes matzo as the bread of affliction that the people took with them out of the land of bondage.” In an article published in the April 10 edition of the San Diego Jewish Press, Sherman wrote that “since matzo has never been called the ‘cracker of affliction,’ we decreed that traditional matzo is not subject to sales tax.”

But the state agency faced a new problem in trying to decide whether Manischewitz Matzo Miniatures should be classified as crackers. Sherman said his staff found no evidence that the children of Israel were “popping bite-size matzos into their mouths” while they were fleeing the Pharaoh.

As a result, the state tax official said, “with some degree of reluctance, we concluded that matzo miniatures would have to be classified as crackers.”