Tag Archives: taxes

Foolish

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Amazon will start collecting sales tax from Illinois consumers next month to comply with a new state law, the company said.

The Seattle-based e-commerce giant will be required to collect the 6.25% tax starting Feb. 1….

And

State retailers supported the legislation to level the playing field for brick-and-mortar businesses.

Foolish. The better way to level the playing field, the more economically efficient way, the way that actually would raise revenue for the verge-of-bankrupt Illinois government would have been to lower the sales tax charged to Illinois brick-and-mortar retailers. After all,

The Illinois Department of Revenue estimated uncollected taxes in 2013 from online purchases from Amazon and other retailers at $212 million.

Think about the effect on Illinois’ brokeness from withdrawing an additional $212 million from its economy.

Illinois collected $12.77 billion in sales tax in 2013 from a sales tax rate of 6.25%. Think about the boost to Illinois’ economy from a drop in the state’s rate of just one per centage point to 5.25%, which would leave a skosh over $2 billion in the hands of Illinois’ citizens.

But this is Illinois.

Another Bit on Taxes

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This is a tax increase that President Barack Obama chose not to mention in his State of the Union address while he was demanding to increase taxes on the “rich” in order to give that money to his “middle” class. Perhaps he chose to omit mention because this is a tax increase on that same “middle” class. And perhaps because it contradicts the story he’s spinning on wanting to make junior college “free.”

Recall 529 Plans, which facilitate parents’ and other family members’ (even family friends’) saving for the future college expenses of those parents’ children. Recall further that withdrawals from those 529s, when made pursuant to college expenses, are (so far) tax free. Obama’s hot tax idea is to change that, instead taxing the earnings on 529 savings when the money is withdrawn for college expenses.

This just illustrates the utter incoherence in Progressives’ taxing policies. And it’s another demonstration of the foolishness of using the tax code for social engineering—or for any other tampering with our economy.

Taxes

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Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew had a thought.

I don’t think that there’s any advantage in pretending that there aren’t big disagreements on the individual tax side. We had a national debate just two years ago about the top rate. We’re not looking at the kind of negotiation to go back to lower the top rate.

Never mind that after that debate and just a few months ago, Americans voted overwhelmingly to reject President Barack Obama’s tax policy—which he’d placed on the ballot along with every single one of his other policies (every single one of which were similarly rejected in that same election).

This Progressive, along with Obama, Knows Better and recognizes no obligation to listen to his employers.

It’s going to be a long two years with President No and his Party of Naysayers still in the way of economic reform and long term economic recovery and prosperity.

Never Met a Tax Increase

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…he didn’t like, this Progressive. President Barack Obama wants $320 billion in tax increases over the next 10 years in order to give tax credits to his version of “the middle class.”

This is rank, stinking wealth transfer. Nothing else. He doesn’t even intend to use the revenue to pay down the national debt he’s exploded over the last six years. The worst part of this is that Obama and his Democratic Party accomplices actually think this is right. The rich should “pay their fair share,” and government needs to spend the money. Never mind that “the rich” already pay 70% of the US’ income tax bill, while the bottom half(!) pay 3%-4%. Conveniently, these…Democrats…never get around to specifying what a “fair” share might be. Meanwhile, the debt keeps growing.

And

Obama also wants to close what the administration is calling the “Trust Fund Loophole,” a change that would require estates to pay capital gains taxes on securities at the time they’re inherited.

Here’s a thought. Work with me on this, it’s a hard concept for some to get: lower all income taxes to a single flat rate with no deductions, subsidies, credits, what-have-yous, and with no special treatments for this or that source of the income. Lose the death tax altogether; government should quit trying to profit from a citizen’s tragedy.

Stop using the tax code for social engineering. Have all Americans pay the flat rate, and leave in the hands of the heirs their loved one’s accumulations.

Now there’s no need for tax credits for some, which necessarily comes at the expense of others. The money inherited isn’t the government’s money, either; the government has no legitimate claim on it, and pecuniarily, it has no need of it.

Removing the tax code from the social engineering business eliminates the influence of a lot of special interests and lobbyists, too. ‘Course, that’s a problem for all politicians….

A Tax Cut

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The Wall Street Journal had a thought on one. Our gas tax should go away. Completely.

The gas tax began in 1956 as a 3¢/gal tax that was intended to fund, via the Highway Trust Fund, building…highways and bridges. Today, that tax stands at 18.4¢/gal (and 24.4¢/gal on diesel). The gas tax has roughly matched inflation over those 58 years.

However, HTF spending has not, nor has it been kept to building highways and bridges. Today, that money also gets spent on

mass transit in merely six metro areas and sundry other programs for street cars, ferries, sidewalks, bike lanes, hiking trails, urban planning and even landscaping nationwide.

None of whose riders or users pay a single red cent to the HTF.

WSJ‘s alternative?

Simply using the taxes that are supposed to pay for highways to, well, pay for highways makes the HTF 98% solvent for the next decade, no tax increase necessary.

More than that, with more than 70% of highway spending already done by the states and not the Federal government, the States can allocate their own funds (a related example: who’s paying for California’s “high speed” train boondoggle? Not just Californians), make their own decisions regarding spending priorities, without freeloading off their neighboring states’ citizens’ tax money. The Federal gas (and diesel) tax can be done away with once the HTF’s spending is refocused.

Where are the Republicans on this? The WSJ had a thought on that, too, in the same article.