Archive for the ‘eccise tax’ tag
The Washington Income Excise Tax Initiative.
We read today of an initiative which has been filed with the secretary of state’s office. Seattle Times. The proponents would like to go ahead and gather signatures so that a law they propose would go to the voters for approval. The law which is being proposed is quite interesting. It involves the imposition of a new tax. And, the spending of the money for education and to provide an exemption of smaller businesses from the state’s business and occupation tax. Initiative Measure No. 1077. There are many details but what I have mentioned is enough for now.
The tax is an excise tax. I have never heard of an excise tax on income before. The notion is that if you make a certain amount of money, or beyond a certain amount of money in the case of No. 1077 you are going to pay a tax, an excise. Why is that not simply an income tax?
Who is going to pay the tax? People who are rich in income. The income amount starts at $200,000 for an individual and $400,000 for a couple. More on this at this Seattle Times article.
The initiative is betting on the success of a shear politics. The people who are going to pay the tax will not sign it or vote for it if it gets on the ballot. They are sorely outnumbered by other people who will sign it and who will vote for it. These people are predominantly the group the proponents of the initiative would like to give benefits to – property owners whose property taxes will go down and small business owners and their supporters who will become exempt from business and occupation taxes.
It looks a lot like the hope of the legislation is that the have nots will pass laws so as to get benefits at the expense of the others who have money but less political clout.
This reminds me of a book called the Theory of Social Evolution written in 1913 by Brooks Adams, the great-grand son of our second President, John Adams. The essence of The Theory of Social Evolution can be found in the introduction to the work at Librivox:
He believed that commercial civilizations rise and fall in predictable cycles. First, masses of people draw together in large population centers and engage in commercial activities. As their desire for wealth grows, they discard spiritual and creative values. Their greed leads to distrust and dishonesty, and eventually the society crumbles.
With regard to the initiative – the forces of greed certainly play a role. On the one hand there are those who have money, who have gained the best of the economy, and on the other, those who do not have money but have superior political strength, those who desire more wealth for themselves by taking it from others. The initiative, I think, is a form of legitimized theft.
It will be interesting to see how this initiative plays itself out.