Here Are Your Taxes!

Isn't this amazing?

HERE ARE THE TAXES YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR:

Accounts Receivable Tax
Building Permit Tax
Capital Gains Tax
CDL license Tax
Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Court Fines (indirect taxes)
Dog License Tax
Federal Income Tax
Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
Fishing License Tax
Food License Tax
Fuel permit tax
Gasoline Tax
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax
Inventory tax
IRS Interest Charges
IRS Penalties
Liquor Tax
Local Income Tax
Luxury Taxes
Marriage License Tax
Medicare Tax
Property Tax
Real Estate Tax
Septic Permit Tax
Service Charge Taxes
Social Security Tax
Road Usage Taxes (Truckers)
Sales Taxes
Recreational Vehicle Tax
Road Toll Booth Taxes
School Tax
State Income Tax
State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
Telephone federal excise tax
Telephone federal universal service fee tax
Telephone federal, state and local surcharge taxes
Telephone minimum usage surcharge tax
Telephone recurring and non-recurring charges tax
Telephone state and local tax
Telephone usage charge tax
Toll Bridge Taxes
Toll Tunnel Taxes
Traffic Fines (indirect taxation)
Trailer registration tax
Utility Taxes
Vehicle License Registration Tax
Vehicle Sales Tax
Watercraft registration Tax
Well Permit Tax
Workers Compensation Tax

In addition to the above you pay for shelter, food, clothing, utilities, automobile, gasoline, health insurance, car insurance, life insurance, homeonwers insurance, and education. WOW! Kind of makes you wonder how the average person is able to make ends meet.

COMMENTS:

Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago and our nation was the most prosperous in the world, had absolutely no national debt, had the largest middle class in the world and Mom stayed home to raise the kids. What the hell happened!!!

nopropertytaxes@yahoo.com

Vicious Cycle

This country was founded on and has continued to exist under the notion that private property is sacrosanct. Now, however, government has the right to tax it to a point where they seize it from you. This is close to fascist behavior: you work and flourish within capitalism, and the government takes your property—whether it be land, buildings, or cash.

Granted, there are legitimate expenses of government to remain a civil and educated society. The problem regarding property taxes at the local level is that the state permits local governments to tax at will, and there is no check or balance against that local government until the next election---4 years away. In the meantime, people’s lives have been ruined, primarily because as areas degenerate economically or in population, there is not enough tax base to contribute to costs. Hence, skyrocketing millage rates and/or reassessments where the government tells you your property is worth more than it really is on the free market, just so they can extract more out of you. Couple that with costs that are out of control due to greedy public employee unions who honestly believe that everyone should have less or none at all so that they can have more or everything---and you have a disaster of biblical proportions just waiting to happen.

That is where we are now. I fear that the Legislature will not even begin to wake up until the results of the 2010 census are reported. It will show an ever-older PA population, a decline in population, and another loss of a Congressional seat. The only thing the state Legislature is working so hard on is to make the Commonwealth of PA ever more irrelevant on the national scene, and because this state is so family unfriendly—despite the old tourist line about having friends in Pennsylvania—the best and the brightest of the youth we are able to educate leave the state either for college and don’t come back, or leave right after college and set up their lives elsewhere. This has been going on for at least a decade already—and no changes.

Over 33 million people live in the state of California and they have less than 40 state senators and less than 85 state representatives. We have about 12 million people and we have 50 state senators and 203 state representatives---complete with district staff, Harrisburg staff, plus Committee staffers. They get all the perks the Legislature does, except for the cars. This is why there is no state money for public education, so they compartmentalize us into 501 school districts, tell us to fend for ourselves, and some districts are lucky—because they have Hershey Park or Dorney Park or some other such thing that all of us subsidize their taxes when we go visit. Other districts have nothing—no tourism, no business, a lot of kids classified as special ed, horrible PSSA test results—and what happens to us? Out of control property taxes. Why? Because the politicians believe that MORE government, and hence more public employees, is the solution to the problem. That leads us to higher taxes the next year.

Voila!!—a horribly vicious cycle that the legislators in Harrisburg are too dumb and/or spineless to do anything about.

Cheryl Zaleski
Coatesville Taxpayers Alliance