From a report in today’s Washington Times:
… brace yourselves for a deluge of nuisance taxes, sin taxes and “fees,” limited only by the imagination of revenue-starved governors, mayors and legislators. Raising fees and nuisance taxes amounts to nothing more than “tax adventurism,” said Jonathan Williams of the American Legislative Exchange Council, a nonpartisan organization of state legislators. Governors and legislators “often raise taxes and increase fees during tough budget times before resorting to hiking broad-based income and sales taxes,” said Mr. Williams, who co-authored the recent book, “Rich States, Poor States.”
Among the nuisances: car-rental taxes and hotel taxes, the “Amazon” tax on Internet purchases, cameras catching speeders and people running red lights, bridge and toll taxes, increased fees for marriage licenses and dog tags, etc.
The report noted that “although cigarette taxes were raised 57 times between 2003 and 2007, the tax increases met revenue projections only 16 times … ”
Says Muhtar Kent, chief executive officer of Coca-Cola Co., about calls to impose soda and fat taxes: “I have never seen it work where a government tells people what to eat and what to drink. If it worked, the Soviet Union would still be around.”
