Slashdot Mirror
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."
Simple solution if you think this is unjust highway robbery targeting the technically gifted: Find a friend or family living in a different state and get their address. Call your credit card company and add their name and address to a billable location for your credit card. Then when you set up your credit card information on iTunes or Amazon or whatever, list their address as the billing address. They can't apply the tax even if you are downloading in NY.
My work here is dung.
"Let's propose tax cuts where it'll hurt em so they'll favor our new tax."
Whale
So the state is collapsing under its government's regulations, and the government's plan to solve the problem is to regulate further, driving more markets out of the region? Brilliant! Eventually they'll learn, or be forced to learn, that you can't have your cake and eat it too. They will have to downsize the state government and withdraw the regulations hindering the market, or they will see their economy disappear. One or the other will be the inevitable outcome.
I would rather have less government for less money. Did you ever note that politicians always say they'll have to cut the most inflammatory items - police, fire, libraries - first? How about their own salaries next time for starters?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
...and I thought apt tax was some kind of Debian software.
Any life is made up of a single moment, the moment in which a man finds out, once and for all, who he is.
It's more than that. Now Apple (although probably not Amazon since they maintain they have no presence in NY) will have to collect a special tax strictly for NY residents, and pay that tax regularly to the state, and maybe file additional reports at additional expense, and no longer have the nicely uniform 99 cents/download price/image - and that's the effect on just one company alone. Multiply this by every company affected in every new area and the burden is significant.
Of course NY prides itself on being a very liberal state, and Joe Biden has said that paying taxes is a civil duty. Maybe they'll like having this happen to them. If not they can always vote some new people in - oh wait! The election is already over and you're stuck with these clowns for at least the next 2 years.
(If you say why Apple? It's because there are Apple computer stores in NYC giving the state tax people something to get their claws into.)
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I recently read that New York City's entitlements policy, bloated "public service" sector, fiscal irresponsibility and system of governance were key in bringing on the bankruptcy of the 70s.
Could this be a case of the tree not falling far from the apple?
The remedies in the 70s included fiscal conservatism, cutting entitlements, dealing with corruption and going after crime.
Rather than raising taxes to enable business-as-usual to continue unabated, maybe it's time state officials considered wielding the same scalpel used in the past to the body of the state today.
Some days it's just not worth
chewing through my restraints.
You mean the illegal immigrants that pay all consumption, property and ownership taxes while not getting any of the direct benefits from them? The immigrants that are hired by US citizens? Yeah, they're the problem, not no-bid gov't contracts, spiraling health care costs, corporate subsidies (both industry and agricultural) along with two wars.
Those losers being states that take in more federal tax money than they contribute. New York gives up 1/3 of it's tax revenue to states like MS,MO,AL,LA,WV,NC,SC, etc...You know, the 'conservative' states where 'small government' and 'less taxes' get a huge response.
Imagine if the Federal Government let New York keep that money in state...instant balanced budget and then some.
Blar.
bleeding money. Interesting. Let's say you had a gaping leg wound that was bleeding, well, blood. For this analogy, assume you're a hemophiliac and the bleeding won't stop on it's own accord. Would you get some blood packs and inject them into your arm? No, you'd stop the bleeding (and inject blood if needed). Raising taxes doesn't stop the bleeding; cutting spending does.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
You mean the illegal immigrants who's kids suck up any and all tax money they may generate - and then some - the moment they enroll them in a public school? It costs ~$12k-$14k per kid. How many of these families generate enough income to cover just one kid? Not counting the other drains on social programs.
So yeah... they are the problem. So are the other things you meantion. They are not mutually exclusive.
We have socialized healthcare - Medicare - which pays a huge chunk of our hospital bills. That's why some American politicians get the "bright" idea to tax hamburgers to discourage bad health risks & lower Medicare costs.
Me, I prefer Thomas Jefferson's view:
(updated to the modern age): "Whether my neighbor eats one hamburger, many hamburgers, or no hamburgers, matters not to me. His actions do not harm my body, my property, nor my rights, so I will allow my neighbor to eat or not eat as many burgers as he pleases." - That is the true meaning of individual liberty. Do whatever you damn well please, and respect others' rights to do the same, so long as they do not harm your body, property, or rights.
The government is not your daddy. Its purpose is not to raid middle-class neighbors' wallets and give it to you.
Your post, and the parent post are choking on their own misinformation.
The US has on of the highest corporate tax rates in the world
If you want to pick a *single* statistic, to tie your frustrations to, then that's about as bad as it gets.
I think we would all agree that the American economy remains one of the most vibrant in the world. It remains one of the most business friendly. http://money.cnn.com/2008/09/10/smallbusiness/best_countries_for_small_biz.smb/
8 years of explicitly promoting a lax regulatory environment for every category of business in the U.S. hasn't seemed to have helped keep jobs in the U.S. at all. Wages certainly haven't gone up for those making less than $50,000/yr in the last eight years.
So let's chop away at those taxes! Publicly funded law enforcement is overrated. Organized crime/gangs do a good job protecting the neighborhood. Courts? Jails? Don't need em. Let's get rid of utility regulation too! You are perfectly willing to pay way more for electricity or safe fresh water at monopoly prices?
It's time you came to the realization that taxes are a part of what makes living in this country great.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Consitiutional Amendments
"No governement agency at the federal, state, or local level shall spend in excess of the previous 3 years average of income from taxes and fees collected except through a voter approved bonding" (Prevent Overspending)
"No person shall have their property tax increased beyond 3% in any calendar year, nor increased greater then 100% since the time of purchase or transfer of ownership of their primary residence by any goverment agency." (Prevent trying to steal and redistributed land through taxing people out of their homes)
"A person shall be secure in their private property and eminent domain shall be restricted for use solely for the appropriation for government owned and operated use and may not be transfered to private ownership."
(Clean up 'public use' for land stealing)
"No company shall be tax on profits in excess of 5% of net revenue by the federal government and taxed no more then 15% when combined with local and state taxes." (Limit corporate income tax, so states at most can tax corporate income at 10%)
"The pay of corporate officers of a publically traded company shall be a scale of the median salary paid by the company to it's employees and contractors and may not exceed 10 times the median salary of the company in salary and no more then 20 times the median salary in stock compensation at the time of aquisition of those stock options." (If the typical employee makes $40,000 a year then the CEO can never make more then $400,000 in a salary and cannot receive more then $800,000 is stock in a year. If they want a raise, most employees must get a raise also)
"The term of any senate or house member shall be limited to 2 terms"
Those would go a long way.
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
I'd rather my taxes pay for the education of some kids from a hard working illegal immigrant family that values education than for the babysitting of some welfare babies that do not make any effort to learn.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
You can't drink water or juice? You're actually claiming that you are forced to drink regular soda. You somehow suffer without it. Seriously?
Yes, seriously.
Pick something that you consume a lot more of than the majority of the population (high-speed internet...we'll tax you on each byte transferred, etc.), and replace that with "regular soda" in your argument.
Once enough people stop drinking sugared beverages, then the government will have to put a tax on the "diet" ones to make up for the tax shortfall. Taxing non-diet soda is just another "what 'for the good of the children/fat people/whatever' reason can we use to get more tax money?" plan.
Basically, you try to convince all the people who "won't be impacted by the tax" to vote for it (or to vote for the representatives who implemented it). Then, you can get all the people impacted by this tax to vote for the "diet soda tax", because it will even things out.
National security is more important than a bunch of bloated social programs that tend not to work very well.