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New York State Budget Relies On Entertainment Tax
einer writes "Facing a budget shortfall, New York State Governor David Paterson crafts a budget that taxes iPod music downloads and other 'digitally delivered entertainment services.' On the chopping block is $700 million in school aid and $3.5 billion in health care subsidies."
http://www.apttax.com/
That is all. Oh, and it's time for all government to tighten its fat belt.
Why not use income taxes for services that apply to everyone like education and health?
I agree that other things like road maintenance should be taxed on products like gas.
I am Canadian so taxing the income is just normal to me.
Not with the taxing entertainment, but I'm really not too upset about that one. But the rest of the country needs to back off on the social programs. Schools, no. Trying to pay for EVERYTHING to make sure EVERY warm body (citizen or not) has the same benefits as everyone else just isn't sustainable. Go ahead, tax the rich. And, as in the case of NYC, they are moving out in droves. So that leaves you with masses of people dependant on welfare, and no more rich left to tax.
California is going to be next here. They have a massive immigration issue. It's one thing to turn a blind eye (sanctuary cities anyone?) to the problem, Its another to try to feed, cloth, house, and healthcare every single person that shows up on your doorstep.
As Spock said, "needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few." The many are the 300Million United States Citizens, the few are the 20M illegal immigrants
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
Politicians will tax everything they can lay their hands on:
- telephone
- cellphone
- cable
- ISP
- electricity/natural gas
- gasoline/road tax
- income tax
- social security/medicare (levied on both citizens and businesses)
- sales
- excise/manufacturing tax
- tariff/import tax
It was obvious internet downloads would eventually get taxed too. The average American pays 40% of their income in taxes. The average European 65-70%.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
I have two good friends who are retired school psychologists from New York ad everytme I read about New York's financial problems, I think of them.
Same thing in California: two relatives are teachers, and one is just about to retire on a teachers pension. I think that California is very close to bankruptcy.
Pensions may sound good, but it may be that only federal government pensions may pay out because the federal government can print money ad pay out in highly devalued dollars).
They'll be losing me next year! Honestly, why do people stay in this high-tax state? I lived in PA before and the state took 3% income tax. That's an ADJACENT STATE! NY takes 7%, for reference... New Jersey has this radically progressive tax schedule where the poor pay 8x less than the rich, so it's difficult to compare with New York.
To be fair, sales tax is lower by 2%. Of course I live in the city, so pay an additional 3 or 4% income tax and 4% sales tax - but the situation was similar in Philly.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I'd say that these tax proposals are extremely short-sighted and show that our (un-elected) Governor lacks a vision or direction, but I wouldn't want to offend anyone
Legalise marijuana and tax it at $100 per ounce. Between the new tax revenue and the savings in less police and prison space we'll make $50 billion per year.
It's time marijuana smokers pay their fair share. And most of them feel the same.
Amazon is charging tax on Amazon orders placed by NY residents despite the fact that Amazon has no facilities in NY due to an unconstitutional law that hasn't been challenged yet. It says if you have an affiliate in the state (like, affiliate links), you are liable to pay tax.
Newegg.com started doing it too, but two months later they sent an email to NT residents that stated (in a nutshell), "We looked at the law with our lawyers and there is no way NY could ever win this. They'd be stupid to take it to court. Therefore, we're going to stop taxing NY customers again."
Somebody has to take this law to court. The problem is, no one has the balls to.
"...will have to collect a special tax strictly for NY residents."
Cell phone companies have had to deal with special local taxes for years. Any company that delivers products and has to collect sales tax has to deal with differences in local sales tax.
The tax system in the US seems to be more about subterfuge and camouflage than any sound fiscal policy.
Sales tax discourages consumption, and instead encourages saving money.
Yeah it has that effect, but only for the people who have money to save in the first place. A sales tax is usually considered regressive because the poor spend a higher percentage of their income than the rich. If the sales tax were 10%, and I make $20,000 a year, and spend all of it, I pay 10% of my income in taxes. If you make $200,000 a year, but only spend half of it on taxable items. The rest goes to investments, and savings. You only pay 5% in taxes. It doesn't seem quite fair.
... and that's when the C.H.U.D.'s came at me.
NYC sucks down more dollars than any other city.
Businesses rarely buy the buildings in New York City - they are usually given gratis while the New York State taxpayers shoulder the burden.
The government is not your daddy. Its purpose is not to raid middle-class neighbors' wallets and give it to you.
Movie tickets, taxi rides, soda, beer, wine, cigars and massages would be taxed under Paterson's proposal. It also extends sales taxes to cable and satellite TV services and removes the tax exemption for clothes costing less than $110...reinstating the sales tax on clothing and shoes will drive people to New Jersey, where they will also gas up their cars and pick up their wine, spirits and soda because the prices are less due to lower taxes.
Seriously.. taxing clothes under $110..... First off, I think they should tax the hell out of anyone who wants to spend $100 or more per item (obviously some larger items can be excluded) but don't tax the guy spending $20 on a pair of jeans from walmart. Tax those who can afford the 100+ pair of jeans...
And as for TV.. well, I know its not a necessity, but it does keep people occupied, and we are already unfee fee'd to death there, adding another tax, well then they better start making the cable/sat companies remove some of those unfee's that they have been milking for years.....
Or even better, the gov should make those unfee fee's actual gov taxers and use that money, the telco's/cable/sat/cell providers are not actually using the money for anything that they are supposed to (that $1 charge for number portability that was supposed to be temporary and go away after they recouped their costs to implement the infrastructure.... has long long since been done, and now the money is basically profit...)..
I came, I conquered, I coredumped
Now I see what the problem is. NY is taxing the hell out of the entire state to subsidize Albany and NYC (causing businesses to leave and inflicting a permanent recession on central NY) and NYC residents think it's exactly the opposite!
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Zero, zilch, nada, nil.
This could also be defined as a envy tax. Tax things people are buying because they have money and vilify them should they complain as it will benefit the children/poor/insert pc group here.
Instead of really cutting their budgets they just invented new taxes. NY will just be a model for what is going to happen in Washington, just don't expect it to be so direct. Instead we will get taxes under the guise of trading credits or some other lie.
look, this is just like the bailouts. Instead of fixing the problem (too much spending) we are enforcing the idea that more government is better even when no one can afford having more of it.
too get you to go along they will of course threaten to cut vital services (read: fire, police, schools) and never all the bullshit non-vital jobs but happen to go to cronies and the like. Ever notice that when school funding is cut that class room sizes go up but administrative positions don't go down?
15 to 1 their pensions will get an increase or whatever retirement system you are paying for but not aware of; note it is probably better than what many executives get.
15 to 1 they will use class envy if it comes down to a fight over these taxes. It is easy to prey on the jealously of others having more stuff than you.
15 to 1 they will not cut wasteful spending because of the previous point, its just rich people trying to keep their money instead of benefiting the public
Sorry, read Atlas Shrugged to see a mini version of what is going on now. It will only get sillier as the months. New York will simply drive those who can cross the border to make purchases there which means the poorest of the poor will suffer. Because the end result is, if you make it too expensive for people to buy and do stuff the jobs which were provided by that spending will be gone as well.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
And diet pop is so good for you. Really, you're not saving any medical costs by promoting diet pop. The effects aren't as directly obvious as HFC pops (yet) but they are there and they do cost the insurance system money.
Cane sugar pop is much better for you (plural you, not singular you) in the long run than any of the diet pops (at least until the FDA stops propping up the corn and sugar industries by acknowledging natural no-to-low calorie sweeteners like Stevia).
Cane sugar pop is still a niche product and thus already expensive (though in my locale the price of Coke and Pepsi has been catching up to the price of Jones). Yes, it has calories so you have to have some self control and not guzzle it like water (figuratively) but the ingredients aren't as harmful as HFC or the various no-calorie artificial sweeteners in the mainstream brands.
I've still got enough disposable income to burn on "luxuries" like food that isn't slowly poisoning me. The masses aren't as lucky and if given the choice for $5 artificially sweetened pop and $7.20 cane sugar pop are probably going to go with the $5 option.
Sorry, I should have been more clear - I was lumping all of the department of health and human services together and calling it welfare. Medicare, medicaid, etc. This is one of the biggest items in the budget.
Defense budget is NOT 54% of the federal budget. That is propaganda from the other side! :) You'll always see the word "discretionary" put in front of that stat...
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
So this isn't an overall spending decrease, but a spending "deceleration". Put another way, it's not a step in the right direction, but it's a smaller step in the wrong direction than usual.
I disagree.
Thanks to inflation, you have to spend 3% more this year than last year to buy the same stuff. A 1% total spending increase (not corrected for inflation) actually represents a net reduction in the amount of goods/services purchased.
Besides to carry the bleeding wound metaphor... taking a gushing wound and reducing it to an oozing wound is big step in the RIGHT direction.
The Feds tried that a few years ago. They slapped a luxury tax on yachts.
The luxury tax did not bring in a single penny of tax revenues. The people who would have paid it noticed that the price on domestic yacht purchases had gone up. Some of them postponed or cancelled their planned purchases. Others went out of jurisdiction, and bought abroad.
The resulting downturn in domestic yacht purchases did, however, put quite a few boatyards out of business, and cause marinas to lay people off, putting those employees on unemployment, costing their States a lot of money, and erasing their tax contributions, to both the Feds and the state (and local) governments.
The luxury tax on yachts, far from bringing home the bacon, actually LOST money, for the Feds, the States, and the people who worked to make and maintain those yachts, and everyone who worked to supply those yacht workers.
part of the problem is that the tax brackets do not reflect the distribution of wealth in our society. we have tax brackets all the way up to ~$350K a year, but then we stop distinguishing between people who make $350K/year and people who make $1M/year and up. this bracket system puts an effective tax cap on the super-rich who possess the bulk of the national wealth.
by creating $1M/year, $2M/year, $4M/year, etc. brackets and introducing a wealth tax on billionaires we could reduce the tax rate among lower income brackets. and by removing the tax cap and introducing a progressive tax system for corporations, that would further decrease the tax burden on the middle and lower classes.
of course, we still won't see any benefit from our tax dollars so long as we keep allowing social programs to be cut and public infrastructure to be neglected. meanwhile, what tax funding is available gets poured into the MIC and corporate bailouts/subsidies. worst of all, Americans seem content to stand by and watch as all this happens, and even letting politicians buy their votes with promises of tax cuts.
There will always be a company willing to undercut your price if they can still make a profit. Company A can sell for $9.99, but company B will sell for $8.99. This only works if the companies could make a profit at $8.99 and the supply allows consumers the choice (i.e. not a limited resource).
Mij
Except that investments are evaluated based on the after-tax cash-flows they can generate (pre-tax profits being ultimately a theoretical concept) so raising tax rates means that investment projects have to make more money.
In other words, raising corporation taxes doesn't necessarily affect shareholders because prices may rise to compensate. Nobody will be able to stick to the old prices to undercut them, because nobody else will be able to find investors who don't care that they will only be paid in post-tax dollars.
It's very hard to judge the ultimate economic effect of various taxes. Very hard. I'm not one of those cod-libertarian "We need the FairTax! It's got fair in the name so it must be fair." people but I have to admit that the effect of taxes can be difficult to predict.
New York City pays $11 billion more in State taxes than it gets back in funding despite being the economic engine of the State.
Speaking as an Upstater let me make you an offer: Find your own water supply and keep your convicted felons in downstate facilities and we'll refund you all of that money. Oh and stop trying to impose your gun control agenda on the rest of the state.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.