I rather think that they don't get in trouble because their recorded income subject to FICA and medicare is much higher than $1. Salary is not the only form of compensation for them.

For example, I work for Intel. Last year my base salary accounted for about 68% of my taxed income. The rest came from 2 different bonus programs and from stock grants and a discounted stock purchase program. All of that income was recorded on my W2 and taxed appropriately.

I believe for most of $1 salary guys, the cash bonuses are the in high hundreds of thousands and the stock grants are in the millions. That still gets taxed as income and the IRS doesn't have a problem with it. The low salary is done for 2 reasons: 1) Make all of their income dependent on company performance, 2) Morale booster for the rank and file.

This usually depends on the elevation of the region where the gas station is. At high altitudes lower octane gas provides better performance. All of the states you listed contain lots of mountains and mountain passes.

Lower octane fuel actually ignites easier. The reason high-performance cars like high-octane fuel is to increase compression ratios without having the fuel self-ignite. When driving in high altitude there is less oxygen in the air. Having lower-octane fuel helps offset the oxygen level difference.

I once drove through Wyoming using 87 gas and couldn't make it up some of the hills without dropping below the speed limit. Changing to 85 helped a lot. Of course it didn't help that the vehicle was a POS...