Comments on: State Tax Policies

By: GUYK

GUYK — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:20:40 +0000

taxes are a necessary evil. There is no such thing as a ‘fair tax’ because fair is an abstract concept and a tax that is fair to one will not be fair to another.

but in any event government must be funded and governments are consumers of wealth…not producers of wealth. It seems the problems with state governments in particular is that the public demands from state governments without realizing that it will cost money. The politicians try to satisfy that demand so they an stay in office. And business who always winds up with the biggest tax burden suffers.

There is really no solution until the public realizes that there is no free lunch.

By: Carl from Chicago

Carl from Chicago — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 03:13:01 +0000

Wow… going after use taxes. That is a lot of time on their hands.

By: Mike K

Mike K — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:22:35 +0000

California is also getting very aggressive about collecting all sorts of taxes. I bought a rug in Turkey a few years ago. I paid import duty on it and thought it was a done deal. A couple of years later, I got a bill for use tax from the state. I had never seen this before and had previously paid import duty on purchases abroad. I talked to my son, who is an attorney, and we decided that it is unconstitutional for the state to charge use tax after the buyer has paid import duty as the Constitution bans internal tariffs. Anyway, I eventually gave up and paid the tax but it only made me more determined to leave. I did have an exchange of letters with the Franchise Tax Board about the topic and we exchanged some legal opinions but they agreed that the state had not previously attempted to do this. I still don’t know if that tax is constitutional but it wasn’t worth $400 to fight it.

By: Shannon Love

Shannon Love — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 04:38:56 +0000

The great perverse thing is that higher taxes seem to inevitably lead poorer government services. In high tax areas, the roads get worse, the schools get worse, crime gets worse etc.

This seem to occur as a result of the powerful interest that arise to feast on the extra tax income. Like anyone else, they try to maximize the amount of money they received per unit of work performed. Since they have the political power to set their own work conditions, they inevitably create a system wherein ordinary citizens not only get less bang for the tax buck but eventually they get fewer government services than they did when tax rates where lower.