Are You As Bothered As I Am About the Internet Sales Tax?

Taxes

This week I ordered a $130 item on Amazon.  When my order was tallied, an extra $11 was added for Arkansas sales tax.

Thanks to legislative talk about collecting sales taxes on all Internet purchases, Amazon decided to start collecting it on their own.  Considering the fact that almost every member of the Arkansas Legislature promised no tax increases when they ran for office, aren’t you bothered that they instigated the collection of these taxes?

I’m sure some sly person will remind me that I’m supposed to pay that tax on my own anyway and that it’s not really a tax increase.   I might argue that a law few people know about, that’s never been enforced, and that suddenly takes effect feels a lot like a new law–and this one’s impact on the pocket book is the same as a tax increase.

I understand the need not to put local brick-and-mortar businesses at a disadvantage, but our lawmakers could have helped them out by decreasing the tax burden on those businesses rather than taking actions that burden good working people once again.

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Senator Rapert Files Taxpayers’ Protection Amendment

Legislature, Taxes, , ,

This morning Senator Jason Rapert (R-Bigelow) filed SJR4, the Taxpayers’ Protection Amendment.

Under his amendment a ¾ vote of the Arkansas Legislature would be necessary to levy a new tax or raise existing taxes.

A simple majority vote would allow the legislature to lower taxes or change tax deductions, exemptions, exceptions, or credits.

Senator Rapert filed a similar amendment two years ago.

Please contact your lawmakers, and ask them each to support Senator Rapert’s amendment.

  • The phone number for the Arkansas Senate is 501-682-2902.
  • The Arkansas House of Representatives is 501-682-6211.

You can read the latest version of the amendment here.

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Obamacare Biggest Tax-Increase in Twenty Years

Healthcare, Obamacare, Taxes, , ,

“Can a people tax themselves into prosperity? Can a man stand in a bucket and lift himself up by the handle?” –Winston Churchill, Speech at the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, England (1904)

Many are calling yesterday’s healthcare ruling upholding Obamacare as a “tax” the largest tax-increase in history. It may very well be that, if implemented, by the end of this decade we will look back on Obamacare and its bureaucracy and see that it certainly was the largest tax-increase in U.S. history. However, Politifact.com is reporting that, at the very least, Obamacare is the largest tax-increase in two decades.

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