Alcohol taxes are a significant source of income. At one point prohibition attempted to ban it.
Cigarettes, while never being banned (that I know of) are another ‘sin’ tax that brings in the big bucks.
Gambling, at one time limited to back rooms, race tracks, Vegas and New Jersey has fallen into the ‘bring in the tax revenue’ ledger line with gambling becoming legal in many circumstances (riverboats, Native American Casinos, slots at race tracks, etc) and can bring in big bux.
So what’s next? In the ever-present need to bring in more revenue to provide services that the public doesn’t want to pay taxes towards (at least not directly) what ‘sin’ becomes next on the ‘acceptable if it’s taxed’ list?
Guys are going to pay for sex, and women [and some men] will always perform sex for money, might as well regulate and tax it. If a number of countries can demonstrate that it helsp to keep the STD incedents down, and provide some tax money, why not?
Anybody have any stats on Nevada and sex workers?
Not now, but there was a time when I would have considered working in a well run legal brothel, I was single, wanted a change of job and had a good body. I would have seriously considered it … would never consider it as it is currently!
So are we agreed that it comes down to prostitution or the lighter drugs?
I admit for a fondness (in many ways) for the fast food solution. Imagine that a 24 pack of Coke had $15 worth of tax on top! Wah!
I’m thinking it would happen something like this:
One state considers it, enacts it, and then begins reaping the revenue.
Other states, feeling cash strapped, begin to copy.
One or two hold out for moral (and re-election) reasons.
I’m favoring prostitution because A) it’s already legal in Europe and there is, therefore, case studies for tax revenues and B) it’s already legal in one state.
It’s already legal in one state, but I don’t see any state stepping up to be the second, in the foreseeable future. It won’t fly in the red states and battleground states on account of the Christian Right, and the solidly blue states aren’t quite as taken with the ‘no new taxes’ mantra.
I can see it now. A car slowly cruses past a line of working girls, finally coming to a stop next to one of them. She approaches the car and after some quick conversation, smiles vacantly at the customer and says “That will be $53.25 sugar…”
I also don’t see a fast-food or fattening-food tax coming on. It’s not that it’s a bad idea in theory, it’s just that I can’t see how you’d implement it. Kinda like pornography, we know it when we see it, but how would you legally distinguish fast food from any other kind of restaurant? And on what basis would you slap a tax on soda pop but not on other high-carb, low-nutrition beverages? We’re getting into murky territory here.
Indeed. Orange juice is comparable to soda + vitamin C tablets in terms of nutrition, so it’d have to be taxed too.
Suppose we go with Jonathan Chance’s $15 tax on a 24 pack of Coke, and suppose it’s a fixed tax per unit volume. That’s about 5 cents per fluid ounce. A large can of frozen OJ makes 64 ounces of juice, so that can would cost close to $5 instead of $1.50. (A percentage tax would work out about the same.)
Actually, when you mention prostitution, drugs and gambling, you’ve just about exhausted the list of “sin behaviors” that might be legalized to bing in tax revenue. (Fast food has been mentioned – but that’s already legal.) There are other “sin behaviors” that, even if they were legalized, could not be taxed, because they don’t necessarily involve money changing hands. How do you get any tax revenue out of statutory rape? (A “sin behavior” about which we’ve had several GD threads recently.)
Since gambling is more prevalent in America’s society (be it Native American casinos or state run lotteries or “illegal” home run poker games) it’s definitely more accepted than drugs/prostitution and all the rest of the consensual crimes.
For drinks you could do it based on the sugar to over-all volume rating or such.
For fast food, you could base it on the relationship between total number of servings, per how much money. That is, if you can buy a meal for a family of four (minus tax) for $3.00 then tax the heck out of it, while as if it’s going to cost $20 for a single person, no tax.
Masturbation. I mean come on, everyone does it no matter what they say. The government could charge people ten cents a whack. Hell, I’d have to pony up five dollars this month so far. Multiply that by millions of people and we could pay off the deficit in under a year. All we need is a way of monitoring people.
Whoa, whoa. When you say “ten cents a whack,” do you mean per, uh, “session” or per stroke? 'Cause I’m not as young as I used to be and you might be putting it out of my price range.
Legalize prostitution, start taxing it, and at the same time implement a special ‘condom tax’ (which will be labeled the ‘sex tax’ by the press). Throw in legalized marijuana, and poof…no more revenue problems.
