Sales tax: was Re: Licensed tuners

[Richard Moody]

> Hi ric,
>
> Exempting ongoing legitimate businesses from collecting sales and use tax
> because they happen to gross under a certain dollar amount is a bad idea
in
> my mind.  This lowers the total cost to the client which gives these
exempt
> businesses an unfair advantage.

But that is the basic idea of our Great system of Capitolism.  Competition.
A new guy comes in and charges lower prices.  Do 20 year guys charge the
same as 2 year guys?  Think of what a 20 engineer working for GE earns
compared to a 2 year engineer.  Do self employed tuners get that same scale?
No matter what the tax rate there will always be someone cutting the price.
And what  happens to the cut rate guy when he builds up his business.  He
starts paying taxes.  But he works for it.  Would you rather tune 4 pianos a
day for $30 or 1 piano a day for 80?. Besides the reality of our business is
people calling to have their piano tuned.  If they have a tuner they will
call him. If they don't they will look where?  Yellow pages?   Newspaper
ads?   Recomendations?   Cutting the price does not guarantee an increase in
business.  People have to know you are tuning cheaper..  It costs $ $ $ to
let people know that.

My proposal was to exempt the first 20,000 from sales tax.  That gives a
4--6% advantage, not enough to make make that many people call the tech that
much cheaper.   Remember the tech with lower rates must pay to let  the
public know.

Another proposal I would like to see the candidates take up in election year
is tax fairness.  When the top 10% of earners say they pay 90% of the tax
revenue, that bolsters the idea that the bottom 10% should be excused from
taxes.  I don't have the figures but that bottom 10% might reach $20,000.
Or to put it another way beacuse of the massive amount of money the top 10%
make, it would increase their taxes 1% to pay for the lower 10%.    The
figures would have to be presented and worked out, but I believe they would
be close.


>If they aren't grossing over $20,000 and this exempts them from
> collecting sales tax, this in my mind is making the situation worse for us
> full time techs.

Are you saying you would not like your first $20,000 to be exempt?  Doesn't
that give you the same advantage?

> With all this said, other techs lower prices don't worry me, state gov't
> favoritism would rankle me though.

> Doug Mahard

I totally agree with you there. How is this for favortism?  Half the tax
breaks the top 10% of the taxpayers get that aren't available to the bottom
10% would pay the taxes for the bottom 20 %.  I f you think I am
exagerating, how much do you think the top 10% "exagerate" on their tax
claims?
Or think of it this way.  How many people who can cast votes on federal
taxes have never earned $300, 000 a year?  Or are worth less than
$1,000,000?   Or how many candidates take in less than $500,000 in
"contributions" and still get elected to vote on the tax structure?  Would
you vote for some wus who can't make $30,00 a year or take in $50,000 in
contributions?
    Do you think you will ever earn $300,000 a  year?   How long will it
take for you to take in $500,000?   Think of all the taxes you will pay
trying to do that only as a piano tuner.    ----ric