We and just about everyone else have written about the desperation of state governments to find new revenue sources. Now comes Tami Luhbi of CNN.Money and in a post titled Taxes, Taxes, Everywhere adds this to the discussion:
Speeders doing more than 85 miles per hour in Georgia will soon pay an additional $200 in fines. Racehorse owners in New York now must fork over $10 to enter their steeds in events. And Massachusetts started charging a 5% tax on broadcast satellite service.
These measures are part of a record $23.9 billion in tax and fee hikes and $7.7 billion in other revenue increases enacted by states in fiscal 2010, according to a report released this week. This is a massive jump over the $8.1 billion in revenue hikes instituted the previous year.
“These are the highest tax increases ever,” said Scott Pattison, executive director of the National Association of State Budget Officers, which co-produced the semi-annual report with the National Governors Association.
And, Ms. Luhbi says, this is only the beginning:
These tax increases likely won’t be the last. Only five months into their fiscal year, another $14.8 billion in shortfalls has opened. And lawmakers and governors must contend with an estimated $21.9 billion gap for fiscal 2011, according to the report.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if we see more tax increases,” Pattison said. “We haven’t hit bottom.”
It is one of the tragic facts of our current predicament that in the midst of a recession politicians find it easier and more politically palatable to take money from the citizenry they purport to represent than to do the hard work of cutting spending and eliminating waste. As long as our elected officials remain indolent and cowardly, government will continue to grow and the power of “we the people” will commensurately shrink.
Only people who already see themselves as powerless – whether it’s because hard times have fallen on them or they lack the confidence and the will needed to alter the trajectory of their plight – would agree to these wholesale transfers of private to public power.
Related Posts:
- State Taxes: Responding to a Budget Crisis
- States Losing Money, Study Finds
- Sales and Use Taxes: Internet Sales Cost States Billions
- A Tax on Dining Out
- Deceptive Taxation: The Tuition Tax
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1 Taxes, Taxes Everywhere | KEYTLaw // Dec 5, 2009 at 11:25 am
[...] Tax Lawyer’s Blog says this about our tax and spend elected officials: It is one of the tragic facts of our current predicament that in the midst of a recession [...]
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