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Regular readers
know that I own up to being a lifelong Democrat, though of the conservative,
pants-zipped wing of the party. You might think that would get kind of lonely,
but the six of us actually get along pretty well.
It should be no
surprise, then, that I’m always on the alert for such un-left ideas from my
fellow travelers as lowering taxes. So call me a reactionary, but I find
myself intrigued by state senate candidate Scott Gruendl’s plan for
California’s tax on Internet sales.
Mr. Gruendl, who
got my vote in his run for the Assembly last year, notes that California has a
full 7.25 percent tax on Internet transactions – the same as for other sales –
while most states charge nothing. We are thus losing business, he says, a
tragedy that could be halted by lowering the tax. Why not just eliminate it
like other states? For one, we’re Democrats. But what really has me hooked is
that Gruendl says his tax is good for the environment.
One might at least
expect an unconditional cut in the name of ecology, but it’s more entertaining
to make people jump through hoops. This gets a little tricky (we’re still
Democrats), so take notes: Under Gruendl’s plan, California firms doing business
over the Internet would charge only a 5.75 percent sales tax, unless it is a
sale to a California resident, in which case the rate would be 4.25 percent.
However if a given company’s employees do a certain amount of telecommuting, the
tax on that company’s Internet sales will be only 4.25 percent, except to
California residents, who would pay 3.25 percent.
No tax would be
charged during White Flower Days or on Oprah Winfrey’s birthday. Leos and
Libras will pay 2.5 percent, unless Scorpio is rising. Businesses face a five
percent nuisance surcharge for selling Pokemon or Teltubbie products, Jesse
Ventura action figures, or any recording featuring pan flutes, Yanni, or the
word “jiggy.”
Tuesdays are
39-cent cheeseburger night, which has nothing to do with Internet commerce, but
who cares. Everyone likes a cheap cheeseburger.
OK I made parts of
that up, but you have to guess which. Gruendl believes that by boosting
Internet business and encouraging employees to work at home, his tax would
reduce gas consumption and air pollution. Increased Internet advertising would
cut down on print ads (and thus newspapers, which I would consider a hate
crime), therefore saving trees. All of this, he says, will benefit the
environment.
Though he didn’t
mention them, there are a lot of other reasons to have an Internet sales tax.
For instance, Gruendl’s proposal will cause weight loss, lower cholesterol, and
decrease blood pressure by reducing the cash available for frivolous purchases
of fast food. The subsidized 39-cent cheeseburgers might seem to counter that,
a problem easily remedied with a simple one dollar per cheeseburger tax. Hey,
it works for cigarettes.
Taxing the
Internet will reduce global warming. If folks have to pay taxes on their
cyber-purchases, they’ll make fewer of them and have less need to turn on their
computers; you know how hot they get. Computers can then be used for the
purposes for which they were designed, like playing solitaire and keeping tabs
on Pamela Anderson Lee’s surgeries.
Another good
reason for the tax: Do it for the children. I’m only one man, but I know I
don’t want my kids growing up in a world without taxes. That may be well and
good for some Podunk backwater like New York, but this is California, where
trends are born. It is here that the governor just signed a bill requiring gas
stations to provide free air and water, so why should Internet vendors get off
clean? Come to think of it, maybe eBay should give free air and water too.
If a slightly
lower tax is good for the environment, maybe we should plunge it to one percent
and see if we can bring back the carrier pigeon. But it’s easy to understand
why we can’t eliminate it completely like those other foolhardy states; we all
love the environment, but do we really want to risk having wooly mammoths again
roam the land?
© 1997 – 2002 Brent Morrison
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