The fatal flaw in this is that you benefit from the sales tax. You want the benefits without bearing your share of the burden. You want something for nothing. Some people might call that theft.
I doubt that very much. The highways you travel on are subsidized by other people that don’t travel on them-it only by the spreading out of the costs that these highways can be built at all. Also(using your logic), this would mean that people that couldn’t afford to live near where they work would pay much higher road taxes than those who could afford to live in town.
By “ignore both these options,” do you mean “don’t report, and don’t pay tax on your out-of-state purchases?” Let’s just be clear here. That seems to me to be what you mean–but I’d hate to misinterpret you.
I’d ask a different question. I’d point out that you admit that you DO make out of state purchases. You also seem to concede that state law says you owe tax on those purchases.
So, my question is: how is it extortion to make you pay your taxes? You admit state law sez you owe them. You admit you make such purchases. All the state is doing is giving you a choice as to how to pay them–you can do the math, keep the records, and pay the taxes you actually owe, or you can pay an easy to calculate estimate of those taxes. If you refuse to do either, you’re going to get audited, and be forced to pay the tax you owe.
I see the estimation as a nice thing–it lets you avoid the hassle of calculating your exact out of state purchases, if you want to.
This kind of thing isn’t really that odd, either. It’s just like deductions on your income taxes: You can claim a standard, estimated, deduction, or you can claim your actual, itemized, deductions, and provide the documents to support them, or you can claim huge deductions with no support, and get audited.
This “use” tax is in place specifically so you can’t just avoid state sales taxes by going out of state, buying things, and coming back into the state; the estimate is in place to (1) make it easier for you, by not requiring you to keep records, and (2) make it more difficult for a taxpayer to make such purchases, but then dishonestly deny them on your tax return.
In other words, your complaint seems to be “my state makes me pay the taxes I owe.” My response is “yes, it does,” and that is a good thing.
The state isn’t extorting you any more than any other tax is extortion–all it’s doing is making you pay the taxes you owe. Higher tax evasion means higher taxes for the people who actually pay their taxes–because the state needs a certain sum of money; It can get (say) the same amount if 100% of the people pay a 10% tax; if 50% of the people are going to evade that tax, the state will have to charge 20% taxes on the people who do pay.
In other words, when you evade a tax like this, my taxes get higher. I have no sympathy for your desire to do so.
They don’t care about the sales–they care about the attempt to dodge sales tax by buying things in “B” for use in “A.” I’d offer a different response: Pay the taxes the law makes you pay, or vote in people who’ll get rid of the tax. Problem solved.
Each individual person should get to choose whether or not he wants to solve his own problems. Each time the government tries to solve a problem, it raises taxes, then ends up with a new problem, which is raises taxes to pay for, to create another problem.
Let people have their own money, and they can choose to solve their own problems. If people realize how much it costs to fight a forest fire, or rescue/rebuild a flooded city, they would probably make different choices. In effect, we’re subsidizing bad choices, using my tax dollars.
Exactly, I don’t get to choose what I benefit from. The government decides what other people will benefit, and takes my money to pay for it. If it’s a benefit to you, then you can pay for it. If it costs too much, than you obviously don’t want it.
You’ll notice no where in my thread did I mention that word. It is entirely possible to be hard working and irresponsible. There are a lot of people driving around right now without sufficient auto-insurance. And as a result I’m forced to pay extra on my insurance to cover it. I’m stuck subsidizing irresponsible behaviour.
I don’t care if you’re lazy, just don’t be irresponsible, and don’t expect anything from me. If you don’t work as had as someone else, why should you enjoy the same benefits? Or are you advocating that we do away with salaries?
- Get disability insurance
- Get a job at a company that provides a group plan.
- Plan for disaster.
There isn’t a lot of excuse for not being prepared. I have a fire extinguisher in my kitchen, and smoke detectors in my hallways. I have several gallons of water. I have a generator. All things I had to pay for with my own money. I guess I could just sit back and wait for things to be handed to me, is that what we should all do?
Rugs get pulled, that’s what they do. We are all aware of how much it sucks to get sick and lose your health insurance. So there is no excuse for not preparing for bad things to happen.
Just because we’ve been doing it for centuries doesn’t mean we should keep doing it.
Make up my mind? Because I said can’t and shouldn’t?
Why is it we think the government can/should solve all our problems? Why can’t we solve our own problems?
They fail. That’s it. Was it my fault they failed? Did I force them to take that job? Take out that loan? Make those risks?
That’s right, plan ahead. Why is that impossible? Are you saying that a segment of the population is unable to plan for the future? That instead the rest of us have to?
And again, I never said lazy. I said irresponsible. Why don’t people have three months income saved? Am I crazy for doing that? If their taxes were lower it would be a whole lot easier.
If at the end of every year the government takes half my crop to give to the people that didn’t plant in time, what incentive is there for me to plant next year? I’d be better off enjoying my summer and getting the crops the government gives me in the fall. What happens when everyone realizes this (or the ones planting move where they don’t lose half their crop).
And why am I responsible for the person that doesn’t diversify?
Why isn’t it? If you want a massive highway system, then you can pay your share. If you want it, you can pay for it. Why do you need me to pay for the things you want?
It’s not about bringing it on themselves. Shit happens to me all the time. I had a leaky pipe a couple months ago, it wasn’t my fault, and it wasn’t your fault. Should I expect the government to come over and fix it for me? What if I can’t pay for it? What am I supposed to do?
If you want to know what I did, I made sure that I wasn’t living pay cheque to pay cheque, that I was putting some money away, because I knew that pipes can leak. When it did leak, I had savings to use. Those savings would have been larger if my taxes were lower. I also have home owners insurance, if the damage is large enough, I can use that.
Should I expect you to pay for my home owners insurance too? At what point can we let people take responsibility for their own actions?
Theft is not the taking of property. It’s the unlawful taking of property.
People transfer ownership of property all the time. The vast majority of these transfers are legal and are therefore not theft. Paying taxes is an example of this. It’s not illegal just because somebody took money from you.
That’s not a serious question.
Here’s a serious question: when you go out to dinner with friends, do you expect them to pay for you?
You apparently don’t think you should be charged at all. You expect free service.
What makes you think that such a competition is going to benefit you at all?
They always do. Every single person who’s advocated for this kind of society that I’ve ever heard or read seems to think that they’re going to be one of the ones who come out on top.
By the wya, you do know that without taxes, there can’t even be currency? You understand that right? No taxes = no money. It’s back to a bartering system. And even then, you need to find a way to protect all your hoarded bartering stuff. Without a government, there are no property rights (or any other rights, for that matter), so anything ypou’ve got is only yours as long as you can physically protect it. If you’re not home, it’s perfectly ok for me to bust into your house and take whatever you want. What are you going to do about it? It’s not a crime. I can even take the house itself. When you get back, I’ll be living there, and if you try to bust into my house and take my stuff. I’ll do whatever I have to do to protect it.
For that matter, why should your employer bother to pay you? They have no legal obligation to.
Let’s take this apart piece by piece and see what we’re left with:
That’s right, YOUR morning commute, that YOU chose, on roads that YOU use. Why am I paying for the roads you use. If you use them, need them, and want them, then surely you won’t mind paying for the portion you use.
And what you’ll find is that if you were in fact responsible for the roads you used, you’d probably make better decisions. Like choosing to live closer to where you work. Right now the rest of us are subsidizing your lifestyle and the choices you made.
Is it impossible for private plow companies to operate? I don’t go to work in the winter because it takes two days for the government monopoly to get to my street. So I end up paying for your snow removal, and then my own private snow removal.
And again, if you understood the full cost of snow removal, you’d probably make better decisions regarding where you lived, where you work, and the transportation you use.
It’s weird you say that in your hypothetical world people get robbed. I guess I hadn’t thought of that since it doesn’t ever happen in the socialist world. Oh wait, it does. Despite all the money we pay for socialized police, we still get robbed. Why is that?
If I had that portion of my taxes back I could be responsible for my own security. We also wouldn’t have so many laws that protect criminals that step get onto my roof and fall through my sky-light.
So you can’t pay to send your kids to a private school? Why are you having kids if you can’t afford to school them? Why is that my fault? Did I impregnate you?
I don’t have kids, why am I paying for a crappy public school system?
You think it’s the military that is keeping Canada for invading? Frankly, the military is the last example you want to use. Having the world most expensive military ends up causing invasions, not preventing them.
Secondly, it was that failed logic that lead to this massively bloated military industrial complex. 40 years of cold war mentality meant that we have thousands of tanks rotting in a storage shed some where in the unlikely event the Russians try to invade Iowa.
Can’t we at least now establish that Canada isn’t going to invade and vise versa? Is Germany about to invade France any time soon? How big an army do we all need?
Well, if you look at two countries without armies like Iraq and Afganistan, you’d see you don’t need takes and guns. A couple guys with cell phones and old artillery shells have bogged down the worlds most expensive military. Before for that the same couple of guys repelled the Russian military.
So tell me again, what am I getting for my tax dollars?
Don’t forget-those who have riches can afford to hire private police to protect their goods. This of course means that the poor would have fewer property rights and much less safety than the rich…but at least they wouldn’t be paying those awful taxes, right?
Why is it worse?
There is also a widely held view that protecting the weak only makes them weaker.
Think about Medicaid. There is an income qualifier meant to help people that fall below that level. But then, once on it, there is a disincentive to work. Working just a little more (or getting more government aid) will push you over the limit and end your health coverage. So the weak you wanted to help are stuck staying weak, and you’ve created an environment where they are worse off earning more money. To earn another $100 means losing $10,000 worth of health benefits. Ditto for section 8 housing and food stamps.
Yup, and it’s also shown that there is a point where it stops being efficient. Otherwise you’d see a lot more socialist countries. And the socialist countries wouldn’t need a massive dictatorship to keep the population in line. History is not on your side here.
It’s a completely serious question.
But hey, let’s ask YOU the same thing you’re asking me: When you go out to dinner with friends, do you expect them to pay for you?
So, as a kid, did your parents buy all those books you read once and then what? Or did you just not read much? I haven’t checked out a book at the library in 20 years, but I still think they’re worth every penny of my tax money.
You also seem to be under the misapprehension that fire departments are there in case you, personally, start a fire. And also that you, personally, pay for “millions of highways” all by yourself. Let me ask you this; would you rather have all highways in your country to be toll ways?
It’s called democracy. Love it or leave.
You’re too whiny to be really paying all that much. I bet I pay more than you. Real rich people can afford to pay even less.
So you’ll stop using hospitals, you won’t call someone with big useful fire engines when your house burns down and when you get robbed on the street or the Americans invade you’ll take care of it yourself?
We don’t need “strongmen” we’ve got machines for that, unlike in those countries where it’s everyone for themselves.
I’m still not sure if your whole OP is a straw man. It’s worse than most Ayn Rand fans dare post on this board. So please say you mean it.
I mean “do not report out of state purchases, but still pay state taxes”, which is never an option for me, I do pay the estimated payment
To clarify, yes, I pay the estimated tax payment, mainly for the convenience, it just seems that if you look at it a certain way, it could be seen as vaguely “extortion-esque”
The flip side of the “estimated sales tax” argument is this, what about people living in state “B” who shop in state “A”, shouldn’t they get the sales tax refunded, as they’re paying taxes to a state they do not reside in? and do not derive benefits from? if they only shopped in their home state, they would never have to pay a sales tax
oh, and during the 2009 tax year, I made far more purchases in state “A” than in state “B”, I think my biggest purchase in “B” was my iPhone, and that’s only because no local stores in my state carried it, I spent more on my shooting sports hobby at a local shop in state “A” than any purchases in state “B”, state “A” has more than made back their sales tax from me
Sure, that would be fine if we all paid the same admission for the same benefits. Instead I’m stuck footing the bill for a lot of people that slipped in through the bathroom window. I’m subsidizing everyone else’s admission.
If they want in the club, they can pay the admission too. What’s wrong with asking everyone to pay their own cover charge? Or did I miss the fact that it’s been weak person’s night for the past hundred years?
So if I don’t give them my money, they’ll take my money? Uh, great system. Either the bouncer takes my money, or the guy in line behind me takes my money. Got it.
Oddly enough, we have all this socialism but there are still thieves and crooks.
There’s no way taxes can be theft. Thieves don’t give you receipts for what they stole.
I always love the claim that government in a democracy is “them”, not “us”.
That’s a valid argument against the medicaid mechanism, if it even works like that. You could very easily restructure it so that instead of a hard (and low) limit after which you get nothing, you get “taxed progressively” or “receive less aid” in such a way that each dollar you earn will leave you with a net increase in wealth, even after deducting payment for social aid. Nobody I know is against restructuring the rules towards that kind of system, aside from the bloody people who are either making money off of the poor or think the poor “deserve it”.
It’s not an argument to just let people die because they can’t afford to eat or get medical care.