Taxes

Conrad Black Summarizes Obama’s Plans to Kill You with Taxes

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Obama is proposing one of the greatest tax increases in world history, entirely on the wealthiest 40% of the U.S. population — who already contribute more than 100% (yes, you read that correctly) of the U.S. government’s personal income tax revenue. He is disguising it behind a welter of largely fictitious refundable tax credits. The increased tax on people of substantial income will be paid out to people who pay small amounts of tax or none at all.
 
No part of this familiar process is a “tax-cut,” which is how it has been presented.
 
The top tax-rate and the tax on capital gains and dividends would all rise by a full third, estate taxes would be raised to 45% and social-security payroll taxes would be raised for families earning over $250,000 a year. The Obama claims that all this would keep taxes at 18.2% of GDP, and would cover his vast spending plans, are nonsense.

From this. RTWT. Good to see Mr. Black is able to write from prison. He is a good writer and a smart guy.

(Incidentally, I have a friend who worked on the trial and was there every day, on behalf of another party in the case. His conclusion: Black was guilty and the jury got it right. Black, like everyone who I have ever met or worked with who was convicted of a crime says he was not guilty.)

Mission Impossible

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I was recently reading through Barron’s when I came upon this career advertisement for a high ranking position. Let’s read it.

“We’re looking for a proactive leader who can motivate others, one who can embrace and represent the mission, values and goals of the IRS”.

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Taxes In Chicago and Illinois

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The tax situation in Chicago, Cook County, and Illinois is unsettled.

On a semi-humorous note, the City of Chicago proposed a 5 cent / bottle tax on bottled water. Apparently the goal is to reduce consumption of bottled water since it is bad for the environment (compared to tap water, I guess). The real goal of course is to raise money, and as this article from the Chicago Tribune points out, a 5 cent increase in a vending machine isn’t a big deal but on a case of bottled water a 24 pack case would go up from $3.99 to $5.19, which is effectively a 20% increase (19.4% for sticklers out there). The City of Chicago claims that this tax would raise $10.5M, which is I guess 210M bottles of water annually or about 70 for each citizen on average (I guess you need to include tourists and commuters in the calculation, so that is maybe 50 per permanent citizen. The article claims that this might create a black market in bottled water, which is plausible, and in any case it would be interesting to see if the revenue target is achieved or if people find ways to avoid it.

And another funny note is that a tax on str*p clubs (don’t want the traffic) also was thrown out by an appellate court; apparently small clubs were exempt from a tax but the city tried to apply it to these types of enterprises.

It appears for now that the proposed 2% sales tax increase (to 11%, effectively the highest in the country) is dead. This article describes the recent measures that county government are starting to consider in order to deal with these cuts, including reducing their fleet of vehicles, thinking about new fees to pay directly for services (like court fees), and some more e-government opportunities.

The city council of Chicago passed the mayor’s budget featuring $83.4M in additional property taxes over the 2007 budget. The budget also features numerous “fee” increases such as the bottled water tax listed above totalling $276.5M.

For the State of Illinois, we are still hearing about “doomsday” predictions of reduced service for the CTA due to a lack of funding. There were two previous dates listed but emergency funds postponed the day of reckoning; the latest day scheduled (fliers are up all over the city and the message drones over and over on the buses and trains) is January 20th. The CTA claims it would have to eliminate 81 of its 154 bus routes and raise fares, among other cuts. No one knows what is true or not and how much of it is posturing, but it is already growing tedious.

It is unclear what is going on with the state of Illinois. Apparently the Governor’s gross receipts tax is dead; when I google it the links return right back to this blog where I wrote about it in the first place and I can’t see any recent references to it. Here is the most recent budget article I can find… I don’t know how this solves the situation yet.

I will update the posts when I figure out what is going on with the State of Illinois and the CTA. Of course we are doing NOTHING to fix our pension situation (check the link, it is a great article, definitely a post in of itself)… since we rank last in the nation by most measures. The key is to leave the state before it all melts down, I guess.

Cross posted at LITGM

State Liquor Control Taxes

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On Saturday night, I was doing what I usually do, which is head over to the giant and amazingly well-stocked BINNY’S liquor store right by my condominium in Chicago (as documented in this “action” post) and roam the aisles a bit like a kid in a candy store before settling on some type of purchase. To my surprise, Binny’s was completely packed, with people who had shopping carts filled to the brim with every type of wine, beer and liquor. When I finally got up to the cashier (sadly enough, they recognize me and even let me in if I happen to be down there when the store is about to close) I asked what was going on and they said a tour bus pulled up out front from out of state and everyone was stocking up on liquor. The cashier said that this happens all the time. I asked the person behind me in line and she said that they were from Michigan and that she takes the tour every year around the holidays. I asked if this was legal and she kind of chuckled and that was that.
Sure enough, when I walked past the “Binny’s Booze Bus” the side doors facing the sidewalk under the seats were open and the spaces where the luggage was supposed to go were full of liquor of every variety, efficiently packaged by the case. (As an aside, I am switching back to cameras and kind of giving up on my Flip Video… because my posts were too boring w/out photos and the video software was too time consuming to mess with).

The first thought that crossed through my head was “I can’t believe that any taxes for anything are better in Chicago than anywhere else (other than our flat state income tax rate)” since we have the highest sales tax rate of any big city in the nation, and I figured we taxed liquor to death, too. But this bus full of booze-seeking Michigan residents offered tangible proof that the situation existed, so I decided to do some research.

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Subsidized Light Rail and Reactionary Politics

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Jim Miller has an excellent post on Portland, Oregon’s mass-transit boondoggles, and on the religious zeal and overarching intrusiveness of the Pacific Northwest’s political class in support of wasteful programs that most local citizens don’t want:

Some may wonder why I call Seattle reactionary. That seems obvious to me, but may not be to others, especially those on the left. On the whole, the political class in Seattle wants the races to be treated differently, is fond of 19th century technology, such as trollies and light rail, and generally wants to manage every detail of a citizen’s life. All of these, especially the last, are very old ideas. In fact, the last idea goes back to ancient Sumeria. I think it is fair to call their support for outmoded ideas, ideas that have not met the test of time, reactionary.

Worth reading in full.