If you went grocery shopping today in West Virginia, you might have noticed a bit of break on your register tape.

As of 12:01 a.m. on July 1, West Virginia's state sales tax on food and food ingredients dropped from 5 percent to 4 percent.

This rate reduction, notes the West Virginia State Tax Department, does not apply to "food sold in a heated state, prepared food, or food sold with eating utensils provided by the seller."

The new food tax break also doesn't apply to food items, including soft drinks, bought at vending machines. The state's general 6 percent consumer sales and service tax will be charged on purchases of those items.

Things are slower down South: North Carolina also had planned to cut its state sales and use tax by a quarter point today. That change, however, has been postponed for a month.

Before wrapping up its 2007 legislative session this weekend, the North Carolina General Assembly approved a bill that provides for a short-term extension of the additional 0.25 percent state sales and use tax until Aug. 1.

That means the state sales levy will remain at 4.25 percent for another month. Accordingly, the combined state and county tax rate will stay at 6.75 percent in all counties except Mecklenburg County  until Aug. 1. In that county, home of Charlotte, the combined rate is 7.25 percent, to account for an added mass transit charge, and will stay there for another month, too.

State taxes then and now: Did you know that sales tax rate changes in the new millennium are 28 percent higher than they were in the 1990s? That's one of the findings of Vertex, a Berwyn, Pa.-based company that provides tax compliance technology and products, in its 2006 Sales Tax Rate Report.