Chapter 17 - Taxes
Taxes
Common Sense Position:
Only two things are certain… taxes and death… So in lieu of having a choice, there should be a simple flat tax with one rate for all incomes above a basic income where that basic income is not taxed for anyone. The only deductions should be for education and losses operating a small business.
Another quote: “I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.” Thomas Jefferson
Regulatory Issues:
The only thing left to do is define the “basic income” amount. This should be a percentage of say 25% of the average state income.
Taxes - Bottle Deposits
Common Sense Position:
This is created by the government’s desire to regulate or promote recycling. However, does a nickel really cover the costs of doing this? The deposit should certainly not be higher than a nickel but they are slowly but surely working on deposits for too many products. They are even trying to promote the drinking of more healthy drinks than soda for example thru this form of taxation. They are trying to do all this crazy regulation to make us a more healthy society. Meanwhile, health costs are soaring!
Something is definitely wrong with this picture. People should have the right to eat and drink pretty much whatever they want. Palm Oil was one hysteria. Are we now better off without it?
Regulatory Issues:
Mike Bloomberg sits in his Ivory Tower as the Mayor of New York City and wants to dictate all this Food, Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives regulations. Food is in a different agency at the Federal Level. There is the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agency (BATF). Food is with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The BATF is clearly addressing stuff that can be very harmful to people. However, they are ultimately, in the present, in some ways protecting our freedom to consume and carry. The FDA is also concerned with safety but more so, I believe, in Truth in Advertising. I believe that the FDA should call for the labeling of Food and Drugs that are potentially harmful. However, people should be able to weigh the benefits or pleasures versus risks of what they choose to use.
Just look at the risks of some of the drug ads that you see on TV. So many have this extensive laundry list of what the side effects could be that it is a wonder that anyone would choose to use them. Regarding food, let’s take butter for example. I love heavy butter on salt bagels. People see me butter a bagel and they are horrified! But for some reason my body knows what to do with butter. I have always had good cholesterol numbers so I still butter away. Will I someday have to churn my own butter? Will it become illegal or over taxed someday? I hope not.
I believe that just about all food regulation should be done by labeling only. Granted, saccharin was deemed overwhelmingly carcinogenic. There will be occasional examples of this but butter is natural. I choose natural over artificial pretty much across the board. I simply believe that my body should be able to handle natural foods so for me the introduction of artificial sugar or artificial butter into my diet is a bad idea.
Diet soda, you can keep it! However, don’t tax it and don’t take it away from people who like it.
OK – two more useful quotes: “Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.” Or more simply put “Taste cannot be controlled by law.” Thomas Jefferson
Mr. Bloomberg, I believe that Mr. Jefferson just called you a tyrant!
Taxes - Corporate Profits
Common Sense Position:
Corporations, unlike government (for the most part) have to maintain solvency. In an environment with an unknown future they need to save a little for a rainy day. Recently our President said that Corporations are not spending or investing their money quick enough. They are sitting on it. He says it in such a way as to suggest that there is something wrong with this and that this is what is holding back our economy. I believe that this is a scary statement! This is a capitalistic democracy, not a socialistic democracy. Corporations absolutely have sovereignty over how they spend or invest their money. If they are profiting they may even pay taxes while they sit on that money.
Apparently, the stimulus money is not very stimulating…
If you want to stimulate corporate investment you have to incentivize it through tax breaks and the like and leave it up to the businesses whether or not they want to bite on the bait. In the last couple of days I learned of a tax break for this year only that is trying to do just that. But I heard it from a tax professional, not the media or the government. If he wanted to stimulate investment then he should have followed that statement with the tax facts. But nooooo, he just floats out this “it’s the corporations” whine.
Regulatory Issues:
You make a profit, you pay taxes…
You invest in a timely fashion and you get tax breaks…
You invest in Energy Conservation and you get even better tax breaks…
This seems pretty simple to me.
Taxes - Estate
Common Sense Position:
Estate taxes vary greatly from state to state. I believe that you should generally not be taxed on what you receive as an inheritance. The person before you has already paid taxes on everything so why should the transferal of the previously taxed stuff be taxed again? Granted that the taxing of the transferal of property from one entity to another is pretty much the way that it is on everything but I believe that this should be an exception to the rule.
Regulatory Issues:
To change the way that estate taxes are done across the country would have to be very difficult. I don’t know, but maybe this is a constitutional states rights issue. However, my basic position should be strived for in every state if it can not be regulated nationally.
Taxes - Fireman Taxes
Common Sense Position:
Who doesn’t love fireman? I believe that they are a truer example of To Serve and Protect… However, locally their spending is out of control. The town is not growing but the Fire Department is.
Regulatory Issues:
All spending should be on-line for anyone to pick apart under the Taxes - Public Transparency Policy (PTP).
Discussion:
In the period of this collapsing economy our local fire department doubled the size of their main building, acquired a piece of land on the main drag thru town, and relocated a firefighter statue about 100 yards from their side street lot to this main street lot. Huh? This is careless out of control spending and it must be stopped.
Taxes - Gambling for Education Transparency
Common Sense Position:
Every penny spent should be open for public review. They say that all the state gambling’s proceeds go to education but how can we believe this? I remember that a few years ago after a couple of kids died in the icy New York waters in part because they could not triangulate to their position even though cellular phones have a fee imposed exclusively for making this happen. They looked into the money trail a little and they found that the money was allocated to buy New York State Troopers boots.
I can’t even think of a joke about this.
Meanwhile, why does our state lottery spend so much on advertising? If the money was supposed to go to education why is it going to advertising? Is this a misappropriation of funds? After all, who is doing the advertising? How much does that cost? Who picks the advertising firm? How were they selected? What networks do the ads go on? How much is paid for the advertising thru each outlet? Who negotiates these deals?
And what about the scratch off and gambling products themselves? Who produces the scratch off cards? How much does it cost to produce the scratch off cards? Who produces the numbers machines? By whom and how is it ensured that the jack-pot cards are randomly distributed?
There are many points here for graft and it worries me.
Regulatory Issues:
They cannot make this (PTP) happen fast enough. I know that the technology is there to do this fairly inexpensively. This will allow us to see how much of the gambling revenue is going to overhead and how much is actually going to schools versus how much is being diverted to line pockets of corrupt people. If this works out right we will quickly see differences between communities and say why are we paying so much for this item when a neighboring town is getting it so much cheaper. Hopefully, this (PTP) will lead to centralized purchasing so that every school gets the same low price in the region.
This will expose how much is being skimmed on the way in and how much is being wasted on the way out?
Taxes - Police Taxes
Common Sense Position:
To Harass and Protect! When was the last time that you felt that a police officer genuinely protected you? OK, now when was the last time that you felt that a police officer undoubtedly harassed you? What is the harass to protect ratio? I believe that if you have had to pay tickets you should be able to deduct 50% of your paid tickets off of your household police taxes. Are police morphing from enforcement into tax collectors?
Please see the section under Privacy on malicious software or malware – here is a real chance for police to help the common household.
Regulatory Issues:
I did not talk about spending much above but the Police have a big budget and I believe that most of it goes to salaries, benefits and overtime. All spending should be on-line for anyone to pick apart under the Public Transparency Policy (PTP).
Discussion:
Here is one very general indication of general harassment. We have the infamous Long Island Expressway (Route 495), commonly referred to as the L.I.E., here on Long Island, New York. This is the main highway on Long Island into and out of New York City and is connected to Manhattan via the Mid-Town Tunnel. To help alleviate congestion, which is a major problem, they built an H.O.V. (High Occupancy Vehicle) lane that runs from about Exit 32 in Queens to about Exit 64 in Suffolk County. You have to have at least 2 people in the car to “HOV it”. So a coworker and I are returning from the city and using the HOV and we run into an HOV traffic jam. The main road is actually going faster than us by a good amount as we are doing the stop-and-go thing. It is 5PM exactly in New York City. We finally reach the source of the traffic jam expecting an accident… but what we find instead is a police officer stopping every car in the HOV lane to check their registration sticker on their windshield to see if it expired.
AT 5PM IN NYC THIS SHOULD BE CRIMINAL!
I could go on and on with stories that are more personal but I’ll just leave it at this. Like I said, think about your police encounters and what is the harass to protect ratio?
(****************** THE MOST IMPORTANT TOPIC IN THIS BOOK ******************)
Taxes - Public Transparency (Trans”parents”see) Policy (PTP)
Common “Cents” Position:
My very general point here is that all public funding and public spending should be on-line for anyone to see. Open the books! Public servants should understand that they are paid by the people and they are ultimately accountable to the people. You will be able to see every penny that comes in, the balance at any given moment and every penny that goes out. This will ensure the beginning of open and honest government. This will lead to a spending efficiency crusade. Taxpayers can have their pet projects that they will follow. This will invigorate the participation in the public forum of town and school meetings. This will spur competition in businesses efforts to get government business. Sweetheart deals will be quickly exposed and fall to the wayside. Competition is always a good thing in this regard. Some companies will take the time to look at the big picture and make sweeping proposals for how to be more efficient.
Above all, this will give the public the ammunition to constructively participate in how their precious tax dollars are spent. That ammunition will be fact based instead of opinion and frustration based. This could save lives!
Regulatory Issues:
This will scare the hell out of many many skimmers. Around my county for the last couple of years administrator after administrator have been exposed for skimming from tens of thousands of dollars to millions of dollars. There will be great resistance to this. I believe that it is akin to when police were first asked (or told???) to have GPS devices with them at all times. Now they have to walk the line! However, ultimately, this will protect them from themselves. They will understand that sure this is a good steady job to have with great benefits but every penny that I spend will be potentially subject to great public scrutiny.
Taxes - School
Common Sense Position:
Where I live, school taxes are outrageous! The big joke is that they have votes on school taxes and when they don’t pass the school district goes on an austerity budget. The problem with this is that the marginal amount of services that you lose are those that actually hurt and inconvenience the public the most. For example, they typically stop school buses and afterschool activities.
Meanwhile, there have been many stories and indictments of administrators that were skimming funds. Herein lies one of the principal applications to apply the Public Transparency Policy to. People can then have a good amount of fact based debate about where there tax dollars are going and how to use them more efficiently.
Regulatory Issues:
The services that get suspended on an austerity budget need to be reviewed. The pain of an austerity budget should be felt by the teachers and administrators just as it is felt by the parents.
Consolidation of administrative services such as purchasing across several school districts should also be implemented. With the Public Transparency Policy fully in place there will be greater exposure on how funds are spent and opportunities for efficiencies and public debate.
Taxes - Tolls
Common Sense Position:
People should be free to move about the country (thank you Southwest). Tolls generate more traffic jams and what are peoples lost time worth? As far as international borders go, that’s where you should be setting up tolls. Make it really expensive for people to enter this country by road! Goods on the other hand should flow freely in and out of the country. .
Regulatory Issues:
Since there are only a select group of states with international land borders the fair distribution of these tolls needs to be decided. I suggest a population based state by state distribution with a premium going to border states. All spending should be on-line for anyone to pick apart under the Public Transparency Policy (PTP).
Discussion:
I just heard today (1/7/2010) that Canada is taking offense to a Buy American clause in the [shabby] energy policies of the USA. There are apparently some old agreements that we should be honoring. Otherwise, they are going to reciprocate in kind. In other words they will issue parallel Buy Canadian laws. FREE TRADE is necessary between states and most countries.
Present ~TENSE~ 2011-02-12: I REPEAT: An Arizona rancher is told to pay $87,000 for capturing 16 + Mexican Illegal Immigrants. Apparently he stressed them out! This is BULLSHIT!
Taxes - Vehicle Reg. Fees & Sales Tax
Common Sense Position:
Why is it that taxes are paid every time that a car gets sold. I think that once is enough! The original buyer pays the taxes and it’s done. The annual registration fees should be based on the value of the vehicle. This enables your choice to choose new cars or used cars. Used car buyers and especially those economically forced to buy older cars will not have the tax burden.
You may then say, well then this discourages the purchase of new cars… That may be true but the ultimate form of conservation is re-use. In other words, long lasting cars are good for the environment. As far as gas efficiency goes, there are and should be advances in fuel economy over time. However, instead of “Cash for Clunkers” there should be “Cash for Conservers” for the purchase of cleaner running vehicles. What they do with there old car should be up to them. After all, “clunkers” tend to make excellent Demolition Derby cars. Additionally, people down on their luck may just need a $500 car to tide them over to better times.
Regulatory Issues:
The annual registration fee scale will have to be determined. A non-regressive outcome is desired. For example, value not weight should be considered so that people with old cars are taxed less.