Oh cream cheese, how we love you. We love you so much we even did a story about a limited time restaurant where the dishes were all inspired by Philadelphia cream cheese. Heck, one of our writers even rewrote the Neil Diamond song, “Forever in Blue Jeans” to be titled, “Forever With Cream Cheese.” And now he’s writing this article about how Philadelphia has teamed up with H&H Bagels to create a cream cheese stuffed bagel, and flaunt tax loopholes at the same time!
So, what is this cream cheese stuffed modern marvel? Well, it’s a fully cooked bagel that is not cut in half at all but instead has a pastry filling injector fill the inside of the bagel with cream cheese. Now, you might rightly ask what the point of this is when you can just, cut a bagel in twain and spread cream cheese on it yourself. But don’t you worry, Philadelphia and H&H Bagels have you covered! And when we say covered, we don’t mean in cream cheese, we mean they have that question covered.
If you’re a tax paying American or if you’ve just seen a bunch of tax prep commercials, then you know that this is tax season. New York State, where H&H Bagels was founded, has a sales tax law that doesn’t apply to food. Or actually, it doesn’t apply to food unless it’s a “prepared food.” A bagel in itself falls under the category of “baked goods,” which is a tax exempt category. However, if you cut the bagel and prepare it as a sandwich or spread a topping on it, it now changes from a “baked good” to a “prepared food.” This is where the idea of a stuffed bagel and fully legal tax “evasion” combine.
There is however, a small catch to all this. Right now, if you want to order some of baked goods from H&H Bagels and don’t live in New York City, you can buy them online. How much will they cost you? $54.00 for 12 bagels, six of them stuffed and the other six not stuffed, with your choice of select flavors. That being said, the bigger cost of that $54.00 is the overnight shipping that the company provides. Again, we are talking about baked goods here, if you want them fresh, it has to be overnight. Most accountants will tell you that there are cheaper ways to cut down your taxable expenses than to order stuffed bagels though.
One can hope that if this bagel thing catches on, maybe it can be brought to more areas with less expense. Cream cheese is one of the great wonders that has been bestowed upon us by the gods of dairy. If you’ve been searching your whole life for the manna from heaven, then look no further, because it is here, it is glorious, and it is cream cheese. Here’s to a future where cream cheese stuffed bagels aren’t just for tax season, but every season!
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