DMA Disputes "Lost Taxes" Numbers 23
DaveAtFraud writes "The Direct Marketing association (DMA) has released a study (PDF only) showing that the amount of tax revenue supposedly 'lost' by the states due to on-line sales has been significantly overstated. Proponents of online taxes quote several University of Tennessee studies which found states missed out on $13.3 billion in 2001 collections. In contrast to UT's claim, the DMA's study says the figure was closer to $1.9 billion. And while UT finds states could be stiffed by $55 billion in 2011, the DMA claims it's more like $4.5 billion. You get the picture (I wonder where UT gets its funding? It wouldn't be the state of Tennessee by any chance would it?). The DMA study points out flawed growth assumptions and outright falsehoods (e.g., counting certain business-to-business transactions that actually did create tax revenue for the state in its count of missed taxes) in the UT studies that cast a shadow of doubt on the UT studies' validity."
hmmm... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:They're both wrong. Aye. (Score:3, Funny)
<warning: rant>
Those who support taxation deserve to have their heads cleaved from thier bodies, in the most painful way possible, and their corpses recycled to nourish the plants that are harvested to produce the grains that feed the pigs who's processed flesh in the form of ham or bacon I'm occasionally given to consume.
The social stagnation and "nanny state" attitude here is so opressively overwhelming it boggles the mind: "We can't do that because it would take more tax dollars and cost us too much."
Fuck the socialist attitude: You'd like hot lunches at school for your kids (no shit: this is unheard of in a Canadian public school), get off your arses, get a deal struck between the school board and a local caterer, and have parents volounteer to distribute the food... best $1.25 a day I spent in the U.S.
But, nooooooo... we'd have to have 250 government bureaucrats overseeing the nutritional content of the food in such a program. And so, our kids eat cold sandwiches (except the lucky few, like my daughter, who's parents sacrifice to purchase a $30, sorry, $34.50 after tax, thermos for hot soup for her).
Socialized medicine? Can't save your kid's life for lack of the funds to purchase the experimental drugs because you've already spent them in the form of taxes that are supposed to pay for medical care.... "So sorry, your kid dies because after paying our administrators we certaintly can't afford any kind of experimental treatment."
Worse than the Nazis they are, those damn socialist parasites -- yes, yes, nothing can compare with the slaughter of six million innocent people in a grand short-lived murder spree, at least not in "horror per day" ratings. But, like thousands of paper cuts, socialist butchers take their human toll, slowly, over time, that, if left unchecked, would surely surpass the death toll of any genocide attempt. Like any proper parasite, they never destroy the entire productive host population, though.
</warning>
Bravo!, then, to those that oppose any moral basis for involuntary taxation (and the, "But look!, we gave you a road" (2000 miles away) argument doesn't wash -- it's rather like the guy who expects sex from his date because he bought her dinner: "rape" seams a fitting word in both cases).
And to those Americans who think Canada is a "kinder, gentler" society for all the social programs, I say, come and live here for a year, maybe get sick and need your tax-funded services. You'll find them surprisingly unavailable.
For myself, born here, I struggle against U.S. immigration hurdles (been there, got the LC, green card processing slowed by the INS, and had to return), but slowly resign to the life-sapping tax yoke. Yet, for my son, an American, born and raised, god-fucking-damit, I simultaneously yearn to keep him near, and hope for an American family to adopt him into the bosom of freedom that is his birthright.
Never thought I'd see the day (Score:3, Funny)
Yeesh.