Fees and Taxes without explaining what they are - or how they affect YOU the taxpayers. Tax Foundation staff economist Josh Barro answers that question in a New York Times story last Friday by David Segal on cities turning to fees to fill budget gaps: Politicians tend to regard fees as more palatable than taxes, and more focused too. If a state needs to finance an infrastructure to oversee fishing, why shouldnt fishermen foot the bill? But groups like the nonpartisan Tax Foundation in Washington worry that governments are now using fees to shore up budget shortfalls rather than cover specific costs incurred by specific users. When it comes to paying for bananas, youve got the market as a mechanism to make sure youre paying a fair price, says Josh Barro, a staff economist at the Tax Foundation. But when it comes to getting your drivers license renewed, the government has a monopoly, and you have no idea what it costs the state or what its doing with the money. Many states and cities limit tax increases via legislation and/or constitutional amendment. In an effort to avoid these limitations, lawmakers are playing political semantics between what a tax is and a fee is. Any assessment that raises money in excess of what is needed to defray costs is a tax. Thank about the last place you paid fees instead or raising your taxes. Remember once a fee is added to a services it takes an act of the government to remove it, As for as tax increase normally has a renewal date that will have to come back to the taxpayer for renewal. Usually on a poor turn-out election...Advise is to be savvy and what for the renewals and the need of the renewal.
Posted on: Wed, 16 Oct 2013 21:22:55 +0000
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