let's hope this new tax angle doesn't gain traction- "Transaction Privelege Tax"
from
(snip)"While I praise talk like "those days of expanded government service are over" let's walk the walk. [ Arizona governor - sic ] Brewer wants a balanced-budget amendment but argues for borrowing proposals which certainly are not what any rational person would call balanced.
Borrowing Plans
• Sale-leaseback of another round of unspecified state buildings, to add $300 million this year.
• Borrow against Lottery revenue, $450 million.
• Borrow $260 million from First Things First early-childhood-development fund, for 2011. Requires voter approval.
The sales-leaseback program is a one-time gimmick that at best postpones current problems by shoving them into the future. It will raise future costs for the sake of some upfront money now.
Borrowing against the lottery and childhood-development funds to the tune of $710 million is ridiculous.
To put this into perspective, Arizona faces a $3.2 billion deficit for the fiscal year that begins July 1. Brewer's 1 cent tax hike proposal is expected to bring in $263 million this year; $1.1 billion in 2011.
Thus, in her proposal, over $1 billion of the projected deficit will be addressed with borrowing gimmicks. I propose that if she wants to talk a balanced budget then she ought to walk the the walk.
Brewer wants to cut Medicaid by $382.5 million. Unfortunately the proposal will lose twice that federal funds. Speaking of which, it is high time Washington stops these unfunded mandates on states. One cannot blame the states for that mess.
Budget Cuts
• A mandatory 5 percent pay cut for state employees. Universities would be exempted because of terms of federal stimulus dollars.
• Elimination of the state Department of Juvenile Corrections, with the duties transferred to county governments. That would force the layoff of 980 state workers.
• No more general-tax dollars for state parks. On Friday, the parks board voted to shut down 21 of the state's 30 properties.
• An end to state support for all-day kindergarten.
Jan Brewer Press Release
For a summary of her proposal, please see Governor Jan Brewer Proposes Decisive, Balanced State Budget Plan
I do commend her proposal for "mandatory 5 percent pay cut for state employees" except that it is too low and too uniform. Some workers deserve to be fired outright, others given a 30% haircut, and if there are any working at minimum wage, arguably nothing at all. In general, the goal ought to be to privatize everything that can be.
Federal mandates sparing universities from cuts are hampering states that want to do the right thing.
By the way, Arizona's sales tax is really a Transaction Privilege Tax (TPT).
TPT differs from the “true” sales tax imposed by many other U.S. states as it is imposed upon the seller or lessor rather than the purchaser or lessee. The seller/lessor may pass the burden of the tax on to the purchaser/lessee, but the seller or lessor is the party that remains ultimately liable to Arizona for the tax. TPT is imposed under 16 separate business classifications: amusement, commercial lease, job printing, membership camping, mining, owner builder sales, personal property rental, pipeline, prime contracting, private car line, publication, restaurant, retail, telecommunications, transient lodging, transporting, and utilities.
In conclusion, Brewer's proposal is a mixed bag that fails to address structural issues like pension funding woes while postponing many problems until "next year" via one-time remedies and borrowing against expected future receipts.
Will a 1 cent tax hike by any name even fly? Let's hope not"(snip)
This could be of major import for Arizona dancers. If this tax actually flies, it would mean that for 2010, as an independent contractor in the amusement / retail industry, dancers would wind up owing the state of Arizona 1% of their GROSS annual business receipts as a 'Transaction Privelege Tax'. Obviously, gross receipts refers to the 'top line' income amount, before business deductions or personal deductions are applied, which is just as obviously a much higher amount than the 'adjusted gross income' all other income taxes are based on. Of course this new tax will be in addition to federal Social Security tax, federal income tax, and Arizona income tax that will still be leveed on the 'adjusted gross income'.
In a larger sense, lots of states other than Arizona are in major budget trouble, and have grasped to enact all sorts of new state taxes in order to increase state tax revenues. Some of these new taxes have stemmed from the bizarre ( sugar soda tax ) to the objectionable ( across the board state income tax hikes ), and thus have garnered a whole bunch of resentment from state residents. However, a state 'Transaction Privelege Tax' automatically avoids such general resentment, because A. the only people that will really know this tax exists are people who operate businesses, B. there will be no 'itemization' of this tax if the business is able to pass it on to customers ( it will simply show up as higher prices ) and C. customers of businesses that are unable to pass on this tax ( like exotic dancers ) won't even see a price increase ( i.e. the tax will just reduce the profit margin of the business ).
Thus if a 'Transaction Privelege Tax' passes legal muster in Arizona it could quickly spread to many other US states. For example, New York and California have both toyed with the idea of a similar tax, but weren't able to get the legal details / difficulties sorted out. If Arizona comes up with a legally 'workable' tax model, though, it could be quickly adopted by other states with near zero risk of legal challenges.
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Re: let's hope this new tax angle doesn't gain traction- "Transaction Privelege Tax"
Politics, politics, politics, when is the Dollar Den of Doom going to get cleaned up?
Z
Re: let's hope this new tax angle doesn't gain traction- "Transaction Privelege Tax"
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Zofia
Politics, politics, politics, when is the Dollar Den of Doom going to get cleaned up?
Z
When the government decides to stop taking people's money.
Anyhow, you realize this is a tax dancers need to record and pay right?
Re: let's hope this new tax angle doesn't gain traction- "Transaction Privelege Tax"
For stripper purposes, Arizona's 1% of GROSS annual business receipts 'Transaction Privelege Tax' probably means your pay will go down by 2%, assuming you were keeping 50% after tipouts and house fees. These kind of taxes hurt low-margin businesses the most, i.e. retail stores, restaurants, etc.
Re: let's hope this new tax angle doesn't gain traction- "Transaction Privelege Tax"
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Zofia
Politics, politics, politics, when is the Dollar Den of Doom going to get cleaned up?
Z
Its hopeless. Most of the dancers are asking their financial questions and making financial suggestions in the other sections. No one wants to deal with political/ economic junk outside of 4 or 5 members.
I've basically written off this section of the forum.
Re: let's hope this new tax angle doesn't gain traction- "Transaction Privelege Tax"
Quote:
Anyhow, you realize this is a tax dancers need to record and pay right?
^^^ which was precisely the reason that I posted about it in Dollar Den !
For better or worse, tax increases targeted toward small businesses do directly impact independent contractor exotic dancers. And with ever increasing tax enforcement, it's simply no longer a practical possibility for dancers to 'ignore' such taxes.
Quote:
Most of the dancers are asking their financial questions and making financial suggestions in the other sections.
^^^ with a couple of understandable exceptions i.e. dancers asking about clubs issuing 1099's in the Industry Insight section, and dancers complaining about recent poor club earnings potential in the stripping / clubs sections, most dancers still look to Dollar Den for answers to their financial / tax questions.
Quote:
For stripper purposes, Arizona's 1% of GROSS annual business receipts 'Transaction Privelege Tax' probably means your pay will go down by 2%, assuming you were keeping 50% after tipouts and house fees.
Well, if nothing else, the imposition of a 'Transaction Privelege Tax' that affects both strip clubs and dancers will also provide a strong de-facto incentive for clubs to more accurately track dancer incomes ... because by doing so the club can avoid having to pay a TPT out of the club's 'pocket' if it can document payouts of customer money to dancers ( which makes the customer money the dancer's gross revenue rather than the club's gross revenue).
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Re: let's hope this new tax angle doesn't gain traction- "Transaction Privelege Tax"
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Paris
Its hopeless. Most of the dancers are asking their financial questions and making financial suggestions in the other sections. No one wants to deal with political/ economic junk outside of 4 or 5 members.
I've basically written off this section of the forum.
I agree. There seem to be four or five people who like the echo chamber effect and have ruined this part of the forum.
XOXO
Z
Re: let's hope this new tax angle doesn't gain traction- "Transaction Privelege Tax"
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Zofia
I agree. There seem to be four or five people who like the echo chamber effect and have ruined this part of the forum.
XOXO
Z
Everyone has an opinion...