Taxing habbits/things that put a burden on society

http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/t...-pizza-tax-the-food-police-march-on/19389681/

Perhaps a tax on ice cream?

A tax on TV dinners?

A tax on cigarettes? Ops...already here.

Beer/booze?

TV dinners...coffee?

Gun tax?

What taxes/penalties/fees can you think of...help get our national debt down while discouraging things others do that often end up costing you $$$.

PS: I think Blue Bell dutch chocolate ice-cream should be exempt... on account of thats my favorite

The only way it will end is if we speak up and say no. Otherwise we will see some of these. Booze is taxed heavily already too.

I'm not sure what taxing guns would do. They're already subject to sales tax (in my state at least) and the vast majority of legally purchased ones (naturally the only ones subject to the tax), are never used to society's detriment in any way. And we already have a tax on non-sporting firearms: The NFA. It is a $200 tax on the manufacture or transfer of any machine gun, silencer, short-barreled rifle, short-barreled shotgun, and other items.

Currently in the County of Allegheny there's an ongoing controversy about the relavancy of a tax to those upon whom it's levied. The County Executive has levied a 10% (now reduced to 7%) tax on the sale of alcoholic beverages to benefit the Port Authority, an inefficiently-run organization rampant with malaise and corruption. The people who pay the tax, bargoers, are less likely to see the benefits of the tax than a group totally irrelevant to the taxpayers and the tax, Port Authority employees.

In much the same manner, Mayor of the City of Pittsburgh tried to levy a tax on tuition for institutes of higher education within the city limits. This tax was to pay into the pension fund for city employees, again a case of a tax being levied upon a group unlikely to benefit from it. In this case, however, the tax was quickly struck down and was never paid. This is what happens when someone tries to levy an unconstitutional tax on a bunch of law schools. As retribution, the mayor's office had the Department of Public Works do an abysmal job of clearing snow from the streets during the winter in the neighborhood where most of those schools are located (Oakland).

Gas tax - see the reasons here

In the same line of thought, taxes on any other behavoirs which have costs to society which the end user doesn't currently pay.

I'm totally against taxing "self-destructive behavoir" if it doesn't have a cost to society at large. And I think many of the currently proposed food taxes, such as the NYS penny per ounce soda tax, are totally misguided. It's not these foods itself which cause obesity. Rather, it's their overuse. More importantly, it's the sedentary lifestyle. All the proposed solutions to the obesity epidemic never deal with the lack of activity, only what goes in the mouth.

I would also rather have "carrots" than "sticks". Reward beneficial behavoir instead of taxing bad behavoir. For example, if we want to get people to drive less, both to reduce pollution and to increase their physical activity level, how about a tax credit if you don't own a car, and an even larger credit if you don't have a car or a driver's license? And perhaps tax incentives for living in places where you don't need a car in order to partially offset the generally higher housing costs of such places. And why not incentives if you get good check ups, perhaps another tax credit, because ultimately keeping in good health places a smaller burden on society?

I really don't like penalizing so-called "bad" behavoir. It seldom works for starters. And it penalizes those who might do such things in moderation. If something is demonstrably bad all of the time, then just ban it outright instead of taxing it to make money. Examples include transfats and high-fructose corn syrup. But the recent assaults on sugar, salt, and fats are totally misguided.

Replacing the income tax with 10% sales tax would help a lot with the merchandise trade deficit. The logic is that the items we import are really just dodging taxes, while the local industries are paying for the social burden.

The vast majority of this is easy to capture via retail, and the "used" or "black market" items can be largely captured by just collecting tax on ebay transactions. (which are all done via paypal now)

Taxing stock, option, and similar type finanical transactions, either with a "per trade" tax or "sales tax" would tend to shift the market toward longer term holdings and away from transactions where stocks are bought and resold by computer programs with only milli second hold times.

Taxing those who tax others.

HarryN said:

Replacing the income tax with 10% sales tax would help a lot with the merchandise trade deficit. The logic is that the items we import are really just dodging taxes, while the local industries are paying for the social burden.

The vast majority of this is easy to capture via retail, and the "used" or "black market" items can be largely captured by just collecting tax on ebay transactions. (which are all done via paypal now)

Taxing stock, option, and similar type finanical transactions, either with a "per trade" tax or "sales tax" would tend to shift the market toward longer term holdings and away from transactions where stocks are bought and resold by computer programs with only milli second hold times.

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Agreed 100% on all those!

Beamhead said:

Taxing those who tax others.

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+1 :twothumbs

Our government is only acting to keep the votes of the morons... we are in a cold economy right now, what they need to do is STOP increasing taxes! They also need to stop spending so much on things like the war, to try and get our asses out of this ridiculous debt hole. They are doing it wrong.

Beamhead said:

Taxing those who tax others.

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While this has already been quoted, I couldn't be more in agreement with you if I tried.:thumbsup:

It's a good candidate for discussion on our Underground board, but not here.

We'll close it here, and encourage you to continue it in the Underground.