Summary:

  The symbol "$" in the PIC assembler is used to refer to the value of
PC for the current line in the assembler.  The operation of the PIC
itself is irrelevant, in particular as the assembled code is an absolute
rather than a relative address.  The instruction reads as "Stick THIS
value in the program counter and execute the instruction at that
location".

  Relative instructions such as the 68xx(x) processors support may
indeed use a value relative to the following instruction, meaning "add
this value to the program counter (I don't care whether you increment it
before or afterward)".  Even in this case it is the assembler's task to
hide that from you!  The only thing it affects is in fact whether the
branch can reach 127 or 128 locations forward or backward.

  If you must be fussy about it, consider the assembler itself as
containing an internal variable (it does) whose value is set to the PC
variable at the start of line parsing and to which the symbol "$"
refers.

  Fair enough?
        Paul B.

(And, being initiated on Synertek/ Motorola systems, I cannot conceive
why notations other than "$" for hex numbers exist!)