advertisement

SSN on Facebook SSN on Twitter SSN on YouTube RSS Feed

Politics

We Should Tax Poor People Openly, Not Secretly

November 12, 2012 - 6:00pm

We don't need to tax the rich, who already pay more than their share. We need to tax the poor.

That is, we need to tax them differently directly.

The poor pay a lot of taxes. They just don't know it.

Politicians of all stripes prefer to hide the taxes the poor pay.

The favorite hiding place is in the prices the poor and the rich pay for the things they buy.

Businesses don't pay taxes. Naturally, they don't teach that in the government indoctrination academies because it is a fact that is critical to living in a capitalist society. Liberals want capitalism to go away and they are not about to explain to students how it works, just as the media are not going to present an honest account of business practices.

Business has been assigned the duty of being tax collector for the welfare state, as it is in Europe.

Taxes are a cost of doing business, just like salaries, building and equipment costs and all the rest.

Revenue must exceed those costs (thus producing a profit, a word that makes sensitive liberals swoon) or you don't have a business. You have a charity.

Revenue generally comes from the sale of your products or services. Ergo, the price of your product reflects the costs, including taxes.

That hidden cost isn't even a voluntary tax, like the lottery.

Liberals talk a lot about fairness, but if they wanted to be fair they would remove taxes on business and place them directly on the people. In that way, people would know just how much their free stuff from government costs.

Taxes on business also are prized in Florida because they raise the price of products, which raises the amount of sales taxes collected by business. That tax is explicit, added to the price, so it is a tax on a tax.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott is proposing a modest step toward fairness by removing some of the tax small-business collects.

Scott said he will work with legislators next session to raise the exemption threshold to $75,000 on taxable income, which would remove the tax burden on the customers of about 2,000 small businesses.

It should help Florida to continue to have a good business climate and higher than average employment rate. It might even attract some of the thousands who are fleeing California, where liberals recently voted to raise taxes again in a futile effort to match their crazed spending.

California's spending likely will bankrupt the Golden State and its greedy politicians don't care. They count on the federal government to bail them out by taking money from poor people all over America through taxes piled on businesses. Got to keep the freeways nice for the stretched limos Hollywood royalty rides in, you know.


Lloyd Brown was in the newspaper business nearly 50 years, beginning as a copy boy and retiring as editorial page editor of the Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville. After retirement he served as speech writer for Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

Comments are now closed.

politics
advertisement
advertisement
Live streaming of WBOB Talk Radio, a Sunshine State News Radio Partner.

advertisement