It is fair to say no one likes paying taxes, especially when those taxes strike one as strange, unfair or just plain confusing. Below is a slideshow of 12 dumb taxes, some currently in use and some from eras long since passed, that serve as a reminder for why sometimes taxes just don't make any sense.
Compiled by Nick Sabloff
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Top of the list: Dallas.
Dallas, Taxes.
Now, here's something that REALLY doesn't make sense -- or tell me if I'm wrong!
I'm a Canadian graduate student in the US -- a "non-resident alien". Thanks (..but no thanks) to the US-Canada tax treaty, a US income over $10,000 is US taxable as US resident. But, doesn't allow tax deductions (as education expenses) as US resident, being a non-resident. My $13,000 gross income (that's all I earned in 2008, all in the US, nothing in Canada) ends up $9500 taxable income (I only get a flat $3500 tax exemption). I pay $1095 US taxes. Plus around $700 Canada taxes (even though I live, study and work in the US, for visa purposes I'm officially a Canadian resident, filing both US and Canada tax reports).
Does anybody think paying almost $2000 tax on an income of less than $10,000, being a full-time student, can make sense? How am I supposed to survive?
My answer: maybe since I'm a classified "alien", I'm supposed to have supernatural capacities of living without food and shelter.
Why is a special tax on dangerous fireworks "dumb"?
Has the author never heard of the concept of an excise tax?
soon some kind of VAT=== value added tax --will be considered - a tax payable on consumption of goods and services.
at ten per cent on a thirteen trillion dollar economy --it would take ten years to make the USA debt free --assuming no republicans get elected and start useless wars
the really big spenders would pay their fair share.yach
Urine tax? Now that's taking the p.i.s.s.
They forgot my favorite tax in California. There is a tax on money you get for suing the state for wrongful incarceration. So let me get this straight. You put me in jail for let's say 10 years for something I didn't do. I prove I didn't do it. I sue you. I win. Then you want some of the money back in taxes.
"Wear less, pay more. At least that’s the case in Utah, which imposes a 10% tax on any sexually explicit business where someone appears nude or partially nude. The tax covers everything from merchandise to food."
"The tax covers everything from merchandise to food"
"from merchandise to food"
"food"
Someone needs to explain how you get nude food taxed
I guess you have to leave the peel on the bananas !
Edible panties?
HMMMMM....
Fountain Drink tax helps pay to clean water way of those darn cups and cuts down on the use of them.
Nudity Tax helps pay for the extra police work because of all the trouble that those businesses generate like drunk drivers, drugs and prostitution.
State drug tax on Illegal drugs allows the Police office that captures the drug dealer to keep all the dlears funds they can find for use to improve that police department.
Tatoo taxs helps pay for the extra enforcement of Health Department Codes to prevent the spread of disease and health problems from unclean operations. It lets the people pay for the oversight of the businesses they support.
Tax on sparklers and novelty forces the people who buy that junk to pay for the enforcement of laws and regulations to at least check that those novelties are not harmful like Herion or cocaine filled packages disguised as a novelity.
I weep for your soul.. I truly hope you are joking..
I refuse to pick apart each thing, but I have to laugh at the fountain drink tax comment. The amount of aluminum cans, cardboard boxes, and plastic bottles floating around justifies the lower tax? LULZ
How about Faux News fake tea bagger hysteria non-existent tax protest day...
You mean the one that Faux News is nearly sponsoring and is running night-and-day promotions about? It's a great publicity stunt for them but, what happens if nobody shows up or turnout is really small?
Faux News is losing viewers because people are tired of the way they are constantly bashing President Obama. People want the President to succeed and, We The People are willing to stay with the decision we made on November 4th.
Just keep remembering, if there is nothing controversial then nobody has any reason to watch Faux News, so it's in Faux News self interest to keep stirring up controversy.
Faux News will probably show people from some other successful protest and then claim that it is the "hugely successful" tea bagger protest.
How many of these modern taxes were imposed by Democrats?
Probably most of them.
How many of these modern taxes are made necessary by Republican spending?
Probably all of them.
it's always smarter to elect a Tax and Spend dem than a Spend and Spend republican. look at who's really fiscally responsible before you come out from under your bridge, tr0ll
Those foam cups holds bacteria and gives it a place to grow in the waterways after they have been tossed into the wind.
Nudity always requires extra law enforcement and you know that.
Tatoo Parlors in the past spread several diseases and often covered for prostuition and drug dealing.
The general public pays enough taxes if you want to consume these other offering then pay for the things required to keep it safe.
Or go start your own country and try to run it without any taxes.
Nick Sabloff's compilation seems to have been put together by the RNC. What's up with that? Most of these are legitimate taxes that everybody has to pay, but their professions or earnings are less glamourous than those names Sabloff has chosen to use. Get a grip and get over paying taxes. People in the US have been bamboozled into thinking that the less taxes they pay, the more money they keep - when in actuality, we all end up paying more and getting much less in return than our other Western counterparts.
Repulicans don't believe in corporate taxas, Texas does'nt have a state tax, they tax big oil instead.
The Texas oil tax is not a tax per se, it's more like hush money.
The dumbest tax by far is the one that doesn't tax rich people a fair portion of their disposable income - and hasn't since Kennedy's time. A true outrage that not enough people care about.
You mean Nixion's time.
Most of the older homes in New Orleans are "shotgun" houses with very few or very odd closets because property tax used to be assessed based on the number of rooms in a house. Therefore to save on taxes people would build their houses without closets and without hallways which would be considered rooms.
Mansard roofs were invented to circumvent zoning laws designed to limit houses to two stories. The mansard roof allows another story to be "hidden" inside the roof.
The MOST OUTRAGEOUS THING ABOUT TAXES:
Richest 400 Earn More, Pay Lower Tax Rate
Average Incomes Top 400 Earners = $263 million up 23% over prior year
Top 5% of earners pay a higher effective tax rate than the top 400.
400 highest-earning taxpayers = $105 billion in adjusted gross income AGI
Loopholes for Rich = ??% of Gross Income
Richest estimated to hide = 30% of Their Income!
Paid Taxes by Top 400 = $18 billion! on $105 Billion!
Rich Tax Rate (Effective on AGI) = 17% probably much lower on Gross with Loopholes!
Rich 1995 Tax Rate = 30%
Rich 2002 Tax Rate = 23%
Current Top Rate on Long-Term Capital Gains = 15% ---- Saved Top 400 $66 Billion in Taxes
----After Bush Cuts Fade = 20%
Top Rate on Ordinary Income = 35%
----After Bush Cuts Fade = 39.6%
96 % OF ALL CORPORATIONS PAY LITTLE OR NO TAXES AT ALL !!!!!!!!
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Huffington Post | April 14, 2009 at 06:15 PM