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Here It Comes: Internet Sales Taxes?
“This is Enzi’s “Marketplace Fairness Act”, and would impose a 50-state and audit liability requirement on all web-based businesses that don’t qualify for the “small business” exemption (US $1 million in sales.)
This is an attempt to get around the Quill decision that made such attempts to impose tax liability on entities not in a given state unlawful. Quill essentially set a demarcation line — as a merchant with no offices or people in a given state you had no obligation to comply with the demands of that state.
This is an inherent part of a federalist system of government — there are 50 state laboratories for what works and that doesn’t, including different systems of taxation and spending. Those who approve of one particular state’s handling of such things can move themselves (and their business interests) there, while those who disagree can move away.
Enzi’s proposal, along with other similar ones and this “sneak it in the back door” game, would in fact discriminate against online retailers. Those retailers in a given state with no sales tax don’t have to inquire or document where their customers come from — you can drive across the border, buy something and drive back.
Yet now if you run your business online you will have to collect that information and both collect and remit the taxes based on where the item goes, even though it is the customer who causes the item to go there, just as he does when he drives it back in his car.”
Via Market Ticker
Living the good life off of government benefits
“It’s not hard to see why. For this story, CBS 21 researched what government programs are available to a single mother of two making $19,000 a year. What we found was incredible.
Our family would be eligible for $14,976 in free day care, another $13,400 for Head Start and Early Head Start, $7,148 in housing vouchers, $6,500 for weatherization projects, $400 to pay heating bills, $480 a year for a cell phone, with an extra $230 for a land line, and $182 in free legal advice.
The family would get more than $6,028 in food assistance and another $6,045 in medical assistance. The mother is eligible for $5,500 in Pell Grants for school with an additional $12,000 for the Education Opportunity Grant; SMART Grant; and TEACH Grant.
Our family would also get $6,800 in tax credits, and $1,900 in withholding would be returned.
Add it up and this family can get $81,589 in free assistance. “
Via WHP TV
Taxation is theft — so why do Americans put up with it?
“With a tax code that exceeds 72,000 pages in length and consumes more than six billion person hours per year to determine taxpayers’ taxable income, with an IRS that has become a feared law unto itself, and with a government that continues to extract more wealth from every taxpaying American every year, is it any wonder that April 15th is a day of dread in America?
Social Security taxes and income taxes have dogged us all since their institution during the last century, and few politicians have been willing to address these ploys for what they are: theft.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry caused a firestorm among big-government types during the Republican presidential primaries last year when he called Social Security a Ponzi scheme. He was right. It’s been a scam from its inception, and it’s still a scam today.”
Via Fox News
How Does This End?
“The fleecing of the American public continues.
The theft takes different forms, but it all serves one purpose — to transfer wealth from the average Joe to the crony corporatists and their political lackeys. Here are but a few examples of how this has been accomplished:
- Bailouts for the wealthy and well-connected are paid for by the unconnected middle class.
- Subsidies are provided for unworkable schemes submitted by political donors and favorites. These schemes inevitably fail and the tax-payer is left holding an empty bag.
- Laws are routinely ignored when “friends” need help. In identical circumstances, would you receive the same treatment as Jon Corzine?
- Despite the biggest theft in world history, no one was prosecuted. The Savings and Loan crisis in the 1980s was trivial in comparison to the recent financial crisis. More than a thousand S&L executives were prosecuted.
- Ever-increasing sacrifices in the form of higher taxes from the productive sector are demanded to continue the plush living of the ruling class.
Capitalism and free markets depend upon trust, integrity, property rights and the rule of law. Without these, there are no advantages to free markets. Nor are there any incentives to create wealth. Instead, an economy becomes little more than a massive plunder scheme where the powerful exploit the weak. No economic recovery is possible under such circumstances.”
Via Zero Hedge
55% of Americans Say Their Income Taxes are Fair; 46.6% Paid No Income Tax in 2011
Gallup’s history of asking this question stretches back to the 1940s. From 1943 through 1945, during World War II, few Americans complained about their taxes, with an average of 87% of Americans saying their taxes were fair. That dropped down to an average of 61% in 1946, the first year after the war.
Gallup resurrected the question in the late 1990s, when an average 48% said their income taxes were fair, including the historical low of 45% in 1999. Americans’ views of their taxes as fair improved from 51% in 2001 to 58% in 2002, shortly after the Bush administration put into place a round of tax cuts.
Where Does Your Tax Dollar Go?
Via Zero Hedge
100 Years Old And Still Killing Us: America Was Much Better Off Before The Income Tax
“Did you know that the greatest period of economic growth in American history was during a time when there was absolutely no federal income tax? Between the end of the Civil War and 1913, there was an explosion of economic activity in the United States unlike anything ever seen before or since. Unfortunately, a federal income tax was instituted in 1913, and this year it turned 100 years old. But there was no fanfare, was there? There was no celebration because the federal income tax is universally hated. Sadly, most Americans just assume that there is no other option to an income tax. Most Americans just assume that it has always been with us and that it will always be with us. This year, the American people will shell out approximately $4.22 trillion in state and federal income taxes. That amount is equivalent to approximately 29.4 percent of all income that Americans will bring in this year, and that does not even take into account the dozens of other taxes that Americans pay each year. At this point, the U.S. tax code is about 13 miles long, and those that are honest and pay their taxes every year are being absolutely shredded by this system. But wouldn’t the federal government go broke if we didn’t have a federal income tax? No, actually the truth is that the federal government did just fine before there was an income tax. In fact, the U.S. national debt has gotten more than 5000 times larger since the federal income tax and the Federal Reserve were created by Congress back in 1913. As I have written about previously, the Federal Reserve system was actually designed to trap the United States in a debt spiral from which it could never possibly escape, and the federal income tax was needed to greatly expand the size of the federal government and to soak the American people of the funds necessary to service that debt. But it doesn’t have to be this way. America was once much better off before the income tax and the Federal Reserve were created, and we could easily go to such a system again.”
Left-wing Democrats push Norquist-style no-cuts budget pledge
“Americans for Tax Reform founder Grover Norquist has been skewered by the media and the left for his Taxpayer Protection Pledge, but now some Democrats seem to be imitating him with a budget pledge of their own.
Left-wing Democratic Reps. Alan Grayson of Florida and Mark Takano of California are circulating a letter addressed to President Obama for members of Congress to sign. Signers of the letter pledge to vote against any substantive changes to America’s entitlement programs, including President Barack Obama’s proposal to use a different formula for Social Security cost of living increases.
“We will vote against any and every cut to Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security benefits — including raising the retirement age or cutting the cost of living adjustments that our constituents earned and need,” the letter reads, in part.”
Via The Daily Caller
Obama’s United Nations Backdoor to Gun Control
“Even before his most ambitious gun-control proposals were falling by the wayside, President Obama was turning for help to the United Nations. On April 2, the United States led 154 nations to approve the Arms Trade Treaty in the U.N. General Assembly. While much of the treaty governs the international sale of conventional weapons, its regulation of small arms would provide American gun-control advocates with a new tool for restricting rights. Yet because the Constitution requires that two-thirds of the Senate give its advice and consent to any treaty, Second Amendment supporters still have a political route to stop the administration. “
“But the new treaty also demands domestic regulation of “small arms and light weapons.” The treaty’s Article 5 requires nations to “establish and maintain a national control system,” including a “national control list.” Article 10 requires signatories “to regulate brokering” of conventional arms. The treaty offers no guarantee for individual rights, but instead only declares it is “mindful” of the “legitimate trade and lawful ownership” of arms for”recreational, cultural, historical, and sporting activities.” Not a word about the right to possess guns for a broader individual right of self-defense.”
