MauledAgain

For as long as I’ve been writing this blog, I’ve been sharing a Thanksgiving post to express my gratitude for a variety of people, events, and things. Aside from 2008, when I did not post and I don’t have any recollection of why or how that happened, I’ve dedicated a post on or around Thanksgiving. I started in 2004, with Giving Thanks, and continued in 2005 with A Tax Thanksgiving, in 2006 with Giving Thanks, Again, in 2007 with Actio Gratiarum, in 2009 with Gratias Vectigalibus, in 2010 with Being Thankful for User Fees and Taxes, in 2011 with Two Short Words, Thank You, in 2012 with A Thanksgiving Litany, in 2013 with “Don’t Forget to Say Thank-You”, in 2014 with Giving Thanks: “No, Thank YOU!” , in 2015 with Thanks Again!, in 2016 with Thankfully Repetitive, and in 2017 with Never-Ending Thanks.

As I stated the past five years, “I have presented litanies, bursts of Latin, descriptions of events and experiences for which I have been thankful, names of people and groups for whom I have appreciation, and situations for which I have offered gratitude. Together, these separate lists become a long catalog, and as I have done in previous years, I will do a lawyerly thing and incorporate them by reference. Why? Because I continue to be thankful for past blessings, and because some of those appreciated things continue even to this day.” When I re-read those lists, I realized that the people, events, and things for which I am appreciative are far from obsolete.

So once again I will look back at the past twelve months, and remember the people, events, and things for whom and for which I give thanks. If some of these seem repetitive, they are, for there are gifts in life that keep on giving:

• I am thankful for the arrival of Emily Charlotte Maule, who is, as you probably can guess, my granddaughter.
  
• I am thankful that one year past surgery I am pretty much back to where I was, though one year older and perhaps one year wiser.
  
• I am thankful for the prayers and support from those who reached out, one way or the other, while I mended, and for those who stepped in to take over tasks and chores that were on my to-do list.
  
• I am thankful that the physicians told me to walk, despite putting the gym off-limits, to accelerate and support the healing process, not only because they were right but also because it gave me the opportunity to get a better glimpse of the neighborhood and to meet so many of the neighbors and their dogs who also were walking.
  
• I am thankful that an agency of the government of Italy has put online many of the birth, marriage, and death registries containing information about my maternal ancestors.
  
• I am thankful for the assistance of a third cousin on my paternal grandmother’s side who discovered the identities of the parents of our great-great grandfather, knocking down a brick wall at which I had been staring, off and on, for years.
  
• I am thankful that my grandson has become an avid user of facetime chats, and that he is enjoying school and books as much as he does.
  
• I am thankful for my congregation’s choir continuing to tolerate me as its president, and for our Director of Music Ministries, who continues to teach me and the others much more about music and singing than I realized I needed to learn
  
• I am thankful that they continue to let me ring the narthex bell.
  
• I am thankful for having had the opportunity to continue teaching law courses.
  
• I am thankful for people being willing to read the things I write.

Twelve years ago, in Giving Thanks, Again, I shared my Thanksgiving advice. I liked it so much that I repeated it again, in 2009 in Gratias Vectigalibus, yet again in 2013 in “Don’t Forget to Say Thank-You”, still again in 2014 in Giving Thanks: “No, Thank YOU!” , even yet again in 2015 in Thanks Again!, even still again in Thankfully Repetitive, and of course, once more in Never-Ending Thanks. For me, it does not lose its impact:

Have a Happy Thanksgiving. Set aside the hustle and bustle of life. Meet up with people who matter to you. Share your stories. Enjoy a good meal. Tell jokes. Sing. Laugh. Watch a parade or a football game, or both, or many. Pitch in. Carve the turkey. Wash some dishes. Help a little kid cut a piece of pie. Go outside and take a deep breath. Stare at the sky for a minute. Listen for the birds. Count the stars. Then go back inside and have seconds or thirds. Record the day in memory, so that you can retrieve it in several months when you need some strength.

I am thankful to have the opportunity to share those words yet again.

A meme is making its way around facebook, and for all I know, perhaps other social media outlets. It asks a question. “As Jeff Bezos Earns $191K Per Minute, Why Are NY & VA Giving Amazon $3 Billion in Corporate Welfare?” My standard response has become a phrase and an explanatory sentence. “Corporate blackmail. It’s what happens when corporations are larger than governments.”

I’m sure that defenders of giveaways to large corporations and wealthy individuals will gag when they read my response, and then crank out the standard talking points about free markets, apple pie, and the rest. But the problem is that the markets are not free. They are dominated by a small group of extremely large conglomerates that can do what they want because no government has the strength to put an end to the monopolistic trends that mask themselves as beneficial capitalism.

The reason that the “give us money, both in the form of tax breaks and cash grants, or we won’t locate our business, our team, our stadium, or anything else in your state” threat works is that these huge corporations know they will find a compliant government somewhere. In some instances governments fear “losing” to another government. In other instances, the decision makers in the government are under the influence, monetary and otherwise, of the corporation or wealthy individual seeking the use of public money for private gain. In some cases, it’s a matter of both.

I have long been a critic of cash grants and tax breaks for private businesses. Some of the many posts in which I have shared my reasoning include Tax Revenues and D.C. Baseball, and three years ago in Putting Tax Money Where the Tax Mouth Is, Taking Tax Money Without Giving Back: Another Reality, Public Financing of Private Sports Enterprises: Good for the Private, Bad for the Public, Taking and Giving Back, and Tax Dollars to Finance the Wealthy? Not Necessary and Not Appropriate. The disadvantages to these giveaways greatly exceed whatever benefits allegedly arise.

In a free market system, if the enterprise is profitable it doesn’t need the grants and tax breaks, and if it can’t succeed on its own, it doesn’t deserve to survive. If the enterprise involves something essential, then it ought to be a public enterprise, controlled by the public through genuinely representative government. That approach doesn’t sit well with those who want to feed at the public tax trough, a strange reaction considering how most of those who support these cash grants and tax breaks for profitable corporations and wealthy individuals are among the most vocal critics of public assistance for the poor and truly needy.

Defenders of the Amazon grab claim that Amazon will create jobs. Surely Amazon can create jobs without these giveaways, by using its own money. If jobs are going to be created with tax revenues, those jobs should be created by and supervised by elected representatives of the taxpayers who are putting up the dollars, and the work that is done ought to benefit taxpayers and not a handful of private entrepreneurs and shareholders.

Many of the same people who support funneling taxpayer dollars into the hands of large corporations and wealthy individuals are also the most vocal critics of “welfare” and “socialism.” Yet they don’t hesitate supporting corporate welfare and socialism that benefits the wealthy, and are not reluctant to twist arms and stoke fear to enlarge the coffers of the oligarchy. For shame.

Another Hot Bench episode provides an important lesson for people who live together, have children together, or do both, without being married. These television court shows continue to be a generous supplier of material for this blog. Some of the episodes that have contributed to MauledAgain include Judge Judy and Tax Law, Judge Judy and Tax Law Part II, TV Judge Gets Tax Observation Correct, The (Tax) Fraud Epidemic, Tax Re-Visits Judge Judy, Foolish Tax Filing Decisions Disclosed to Judge Judy, So Does Anyone Pay Taxes?, Learning About Tax from the Judge. Judy, That Is, Tax Fraud in the People’s Court, More Tax Fraud, This Time in Judge Judy’s Court, You Mean That Tax Refund Isn’t for Me? Really?, Law and Genealogy Meeting In An Interesting Way, How Is This Not Tax Fraud?, A Court Case in Which All of Them Miss The Tax Point, Judge Judy Almost Eliminates the National Debt, Judge Judy Tells Litigant to Contact the IRS, People’s Court: So Who Did the Tax Cheating?, “I’ll Pay You (Back) When I Get My Tax Refund”, Be Careful When Paying Another Person’s Tax Preparation Fee, Gross Income from Dating?, Preparing Someone’s Tax Return Without Permission, When Someone Else Claims You as a Dependent on Their Tax Return and You Disagree, Does Refusal to Provide a Receipt Suggest Tax Fraud Underway?, When Tax Scammers Sue Each Other, One of the Reasons Tax Law Is Complicated, An Easy Tax Issue for Judge Judy, Another Easy Tax Issue for Judge Judy, Yet Another Easy Tax Issue for Judge Judy, and Be Careful When Selecting and Dealing with a Tax Return Preparer.

In Episode 56 of season 5 of Hot Bench – this is the best link I can find – the plaintiff sued the father of her children, because she claimed that they had an agreement for him to give her one half of his income tax refund each time he received an income tax refund. The parties had been together for five years, had two children, and until they broke up, the defendant was the source of income for the family. He claimed the two children as dependents on his tax return, and for the year in question received a $10,000 refund. After they broke up, the plaintiff obtained a job.

The defendant denied that the alleged agreement existed. The plaintiff testified that every year since their first child was born the defendant gave the plaintiff $1300 of his tax refund if he received a refund. The defendant agreed with that assertion. The plaintiff admitted that she did not know how much of a refund the defendant received each year. The defendant explained that the $10,000 refund was extraordinary, and that in the past when there was a refund it was usually $3000 to $4000, and that he gave plaintiff a random portion each year. The plaintiff agreed. The plaintiff testified that the largest portion of a tax refund that she ever received from defendant was $1,500.

When asked by one of the judges, the parties admitted that they had not been to family court with respect to child support and other financial issues.

The plaintiff agreed that the agreement did not apply after they broke up, but that the defendant received the $10,000 refund before they broke up. The parties agreed that the defendant had been paying child support regularly, and that one child was receiving SSI because of a disability. The plaintiff then argued that the defendant owed her $1,300 but that he did not pay her, because for some unexplained reason, some money of the defendant had been garnished. It was unclear whether the $1,300 was a different amount, or a change in the plaintiff’s position with respect to how much she claimed the defendant owed her.

During deliberations, one judge pointed out that once they broke up and the plaintiff started working, the agreement made no sense, because the plaintiff possibly could claim at least one of the children as a defendant. The judges agreed that the defendant had no legal obligation to pay the plaintiff, but decided that based on the prior course of dealing between the parties, the defendant should give $1,300 to the plaintiff. The judges told the parties to get legal advice, go to family court, and resolve their financial issues before they encountered more points of contention.

The lesson to be learned from this case is important, and should be obvious though unfortunately it is not. When making financial agreements with someone, put it in writing. When the agreement is between individuals who are not married, it is even more important that the agreement be put in writing because there is no recourse to state law applicable to married couples to provide remedies. Of course, even if the parties are married, it makes sense to enter into agreements to reduce or eliminate the disputes that can arise even though state law might apply. State law might not apply and if it does, it might not provide an answer that the parties would have preferred.

An agreement of the sort that the plaintiff claimed existed could provide additional parameters, such as the computation of the portion of the refund to be transferred, outcomes if no refund existed, the outcome if additional tax was due, the outcome if the amount to be transferred is a fixed amount that exceeds the refund, the date on which the payment is due, the consequences of failing to make the payment, and similar concerns. Not only does an agreement provide a memorial of the terms, in the event that one or both parties forgets or if they disagree, but also to encourage the parties to think about the terms of the agreement in advance rather than after the relationship falls apart.

Reader Morris directed my attention to an election report on the outcome of an Oregon ballot initiative that would have subjected changes in tax exemptions, credits, deductions, and fees to the same three-fifths legislative majority requirement that applies to tax rate increases. The initiative was proposed after Oregon’s Supreme Court held that the three-fifths requirement did not apply to the legislature’s elimination of tax exemptions and tax rebates. That decision is consistent with how most other states apply supermajority tax increase requirements.

Proponents of the ballot initiative feared that the legislature would use the decision as justification for increasing revenue and spending. Opponents pointed out that the initiative was intended to protect 367 tax breaks that cost the state more than $12 billion and that primarily benefit businesses. Fingers were pointed at real estate agents, who think that the state’s mortgage interest deduction is at risk.

When Oregon voters went to the polls, 65 percent of them voted against the initiative. That wasn’t quite a supermajority of voters, but it was much more than enough to defeat the initiative.

So what’s in the future when it comes to taxes at the federal level? Four points are made in this recent post-election article.

The first point is simple. “Because Democrats will control the schedule [in the House], GOP efforts to . . . broadly cut taxes anew won't see the light of day.” I think that is a safe, and easy, prediction, unless Trump is being honest about his wish to cut taxes on the middle class and his having an open mind to rolling back some of the 2017 tax cuts for wealthy individuals and large corporations and is able to persuade Senate Republicans to go along. All things considered, it is unlikely Senate Republicans, and their financial backers, will let that happen.

The second point is simple. “Democrats . . . could propose . . . requiring presidential and vice presidential candidates to release tax returns.” Legislation of that sort probably would pass the House, but, again, it is not difficult to envision Senate Republicans blocking it.

The third point is connected to the first point. “[Democrats] also want to upgrade roads, schools, mass transit and communication systems. . . . The big dispute is over how to finance the mammoth investment. . . . How to pay for their initiatives? Some Democrats say privately that one possibility is erasing reductions that last year's GOP-written, $1.5 trillion tax cut bestowed on wealthy Americans.” It is difficult to imagine Senate Republicans, and their wealthy financial backers, letting that happen.

The fourth point is related to the first and third points. “Another possibility [for financing infrastructure improvements] is raising the 18.4 cents per gallon federal gasoline tax, last boosted in the 1990s, by up to 1 percent annually.” Perhaps if they call it a user fee they might find a way around the mindless “no tax increases ever no matter what” position of the anti-tax crew. There is a chance that intelligence will prevail over emotion and some sort of adjustment to the tax to reflect inflation will be made, but I hesitate to call it anything more than a chance.

With a divided Congress, it is unlikely much of anything will be accomplished in the federal tax world. It is likely, however, that sparks will fly when it comes time to pass a budget. It would not be going out on a limb to predict that government shutdowns and stalemates with respect to federal budget decision are likely.

Those television court shows continue to provide material for this blog. Some examples can be found in previous posts such as Judge Judy and Tax Law, Judge Judy and Tax Law Part II, TV Judge Gets Tax Observation Correct, The (Tax) Fraud Epidemic, Tax Re-Visits Judge Judy, Foolish Tax Filing Decisions Disclosed to Judge Judy, So Does Anyone Pay Taxes?, Learning About Tax from the Judge. Judy, That Is, Tax Fraud in the People’s Court, More Tax Fraud, This Time in Judge Judy’s Court, You Mean That Tax Refund Isn’t for Me? Really?, Law and Genealogy Meeting In An Interesting Way, How Is This Not Tax Fraud?, A Court Case in Which All of Them Miss The Tax Point, Judge Judy Almost Eliminates the National Debt, Judge Judy Tells Litigant to Contact the IRS, People’s Court: So Who Did the Tax Cheating?, “I’ll Pay You (Back) When I Get My Tax Refund”, Be Careful When Paying Another Person’s Tax Preparation Fee, Gross Income from Dating?, Preparing Someone’s Tax Return Without Permission, When Someone Else Claims You as a Dependent on Their Tax Return and You Disagree, Does Refusal to Provide a Receipt Suggest Tax Fraud Underway?, When Tax Scammers Sue Each Other, One of the Reasons Tax Law Is Complicated, An Easy Tax Issue for Judge Judy, Another Easy Tax Issue for Judge Judy, and Yet Another Easy Tax Issue for Judge Judy.

This time it’s a Hot Bench episode, for which I cannot find an online link. The plaintiff and defendant opened a joint bank account, with the plaintiff as the primary owner and the defendant as the secondary owner. Sometime thereafter, the plaintiff was incarcerated. When he was released from prison, he tried to open a bank account and become a customer of a bank. The bank refused to let him open the account, because a credit check revealed that the bank had a claim against the plaintiff. It wasn’t clear why the bank did not accept the plaintiff’s money and then seize it in satisfaction of the claim. The facts are unclear and there probably are banking law nuances of which I am not aware.

So what happened? While the plaintiff was in prison, the defendant went to a tax return preparer to have her tax return prepared. The return was prepared, a refund was computed, and the preparer arranged for the IRS to deposit the refund in the preparer’s account. The preparer then wrote and delivered a check to the defendant. The defendant cashed the check, and the bank did not hold the check and delay handing over the cash until the check cleared. Of course, the check bounced because there was no money in the preparer’s account. The bank started a process to get the money back from the defendant. The defendant testified that she tried to remove the plaintiff from the account while he was in prison, but the bank would not do so because it required the plaintiff to appear in person. The defendant also testified that she tried to find the preparer, but was unsuccessful because all she had was the preparer’s name.

The plaintiff sued the defendant, seeking damages on the basis that by depositing a bad check into the joint account, she made it impossible for him to open a bank account and move forward with his life financially. The court dismissed the plaintiff’s claim because it was not yet ripe. The court explained that the case was not ripe because no one had, as of yet, sued the plaintiff, recovered money from the plaintiff, or otherwise caused the plaintiff to be out-of-pocket incurring damages. The court also explained that the plaintiff had not provided sufficient proof of economic damage.

What struck me about the case were two questions about the defendant’s decisions with respect to the tax preparer. First, why go to a tax return preparer and not obtain not only the preparer’s name, but also the preparer’s address, telephone number, email address, web site link, if any, and a business card? A preparer who cannot provide that information is not a preparer who ought to be given someone’s business. Second, why permit the preparer to have the refund deposited into the preparer’s account instead of having the refund sent directly to the taxpayer? It simply makes no sense. The defendant was not asked these questions, probably because the answers did not bear directly on the issue in the case.

This case provides lessons to be learned by anyone who retains a tax return preparer. Get recommendations from friends and relatives who are trusted. Get more than the preparer’s name. Don’t let the preparer direct a refund into the preparer’s account. Be careful with joint bank accounts, and learn about the advantages, disadvantages, and risks of using them. Tax season might be a few months away, but it’s not too soon to begin thinking about who to use as a preparer in February, March, and April of next year.

One definition of insanity that circulates through society is the notion that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. People who disagree will point to a child shooting free throws in a basketball game who misses time and again and then hits one. The problem with that objection to the definition is that it does not take into account adjustments made by the child in shooting the ball, which is a natural reaction to having failed. If the child insisted that there was no need to adjust because all of the previous shots had fallen through the net, coaches and parents, and probably teammates, would become extremely concerned about the child’s eyesight or mental skills.

Last week, a meme popped up on my facebook feed. It pointed out that

Stock market is where it was a year ago. Wages are stagnant. National debt is out of control. Interest rates rising. Housing sales down. All this after huge tax cuts for corporations and billionaires. How much longer until Republicans learn that trickle down economics don’t work.”

I could not resist. I replied with a fairly short, for me, response:

They've had multiple opportunities to learn, considering that they have done this time and again with the same results. They know but don't care that trickle-down supply-side economics does not work, they aren't trying to help the middle class and the poor, the term is just a slogan to dupe Americans into voting for the oligarchs who want to own the world and relegate 99.9 percent to the status of, at best, serfs.

And before those who think my reaction is too extreme, Republicans, perhaps confident that gerrymandering and vote suppression will continue to leave a minority party running a nation the majority of whose voters don’t approve of their policies, have announced that they intend to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid payments. Some even claim that their goal is to eliminate those programs. It doesn’t take rocket science to figure out what the consequences will be if those things happen. Those who profess concern for the middle class and the poor by claiming that trickle down economics works, but who also are determined to cut or eliminate programs essential to the well-being of the middle class and the poor, are becoming increasingly bold and transparent with their actual intentions, just as some others are similarly becoming bold and transparent about their feelings. The bottom line is that trickle down economics, and its corollary supply-side economic theory, has the adverse effect that its proponents want. All that has changed is that they are confident that those adversely affected don’t have the determination, will, and courage to stand up to being bullied and mistreated. How sad.

Every now and then I remind people that tax is everywhere. I did that 13 years ago in Truly, Tax is Everywhere, 12 years ago in Attack of the Tax Form Clones, 7 years ago in Judge Judy and Tax Law Part II, and 6 years ago in Taxes as an Element in Damages, to mention but a few of the times I have made that point.

The other day I read a sports article, and to my surprise, and admittedly delight, up popped a tax tale, though not what one would expect. The article described the welcome that wide receiver Golden Tate received from Eagles fans when he was traded from Detroit to Philadelphia last week. Somehow, on his flight from Detroit to Philadelphia were Eagles fans returning to Philadelphia from attending the Eagles-Jaguars game in London, England. I say “somehow” as a one-word summary at the strange paths people must take when flying from one place to another.

Anyhow, according to the article, “On the plane, Tate took his seat next to a man who kept peering at his phone and glancing at the former Detroit Lions receiver. When the connection was made that it was, in fact, Tate sitting next to him, they started talking. The fan works for the IRS and told Tate about Philadelphia's wage tax, offering tax advice for the Eagles' road games. That's a new Welcome to Philadelphia moment.”

So many thoughts popped into my head. First, an IRS employee working in the Philadelphia area surely knows about the Philadelphia wage tax, but the IRS does not, contrary to what some people think, administer or enforce the Philadelphia wage tax. Second, should an IRS employee be giving tax advice to someone, even if the tax in question is not one administered by the IRS? Third, was the advice in the form of, “If you don’t have a good tax attorney adept with state and local taxes, they are easy to find in Philadelphia.” Fourth, did the IRS employee suggest, “When you look for a tax attorney in Philadelphia, make certain the attorney holds an LL.M. (Taxation) from Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law”? Fifth, was the IRS employee an attorney who at some point sat in one of my tax classes at Villanova? That’s not improbable, because many of my students have been avid Philadelphia Eagles fans, and kindly tolerated their colleagues who walked into class wearing jerseys of other teams, particularly those other three in the NFC East Division.

Perhaps it isn’t all that surprising that tax pops up on an airplane. I encounter tax questions not only at the school, even though I haven’t taught a tax course for two years, but also at the gym, at church, in the neighborhood, at family gatherings, on facebook, and at stores. And in many instances, the conversation starts before the other person or persons realize I know a thing or two about tax.

I say that tax is everywhere, but I wonder if tax exists in the afterlife. Eventually I’ll find out. If I can, I’ll let you know.

After reading this Philadelphia Inquirer article I concluded that inattention to precise wording causes needless confusion. A bit of background is important to understanding the issue.

Last year, California enacted increases in vehicle fees and gasoline taxes in order to fund repairs to crumbling highway infrastructure. The anti-tax crowd objected, and placed on this November’s ballot a proposal, Proposition 6, which would require voter approval of any increase in vehicle fees or gasoline taxes enacted after January 1, 2017. One might think the positions of those favoring and those opposing Proposition 6 are clear. So what is the language problem?

On the ballot, Proposition 6 is titled, “ELIMINATES CERTAIN ROAD REPAIR AND TRANSPORTATION FUNDING. REQUIRES CERTAIN FUEL TAXES AND VEHICLE FEES BE APPROVED BY THE ELECTORATE. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT.” Proposition 6 proponents do not like that wording, because it does not “convey quickly enough its mission,” which is the repeal of the 2017 fee and tax increases. Though there is a process for challenging ballot language, but Proposition 6 proponents did not do so. Instead, proponents published advertisements, disseminated literature, and made robocalls telling voters that there was a mistake in the Proposition 6 language on the ballot. The mailer was designed to appear as though it was an official publication of government officials. This prompted those officials to alert voters that there is no Proposition 6 ballot error. Their advertising and mailers use the words “GAS TAX REPEAL INITIATIVE.” Proponents explained that they prefer to spend money educating voters rather than paying lawyers to contest the ballot language.

Opponents of Proposition 6 have characterized the supporters’ advertising, mailers, and calls as “deceptive.” They point out that the ballot language isn’t what they most preferred, which would be “The attack on roads and bridges.” They note that even though the language of the ballot isn’t what they wanted, they are “not trying to deceive voters.” Their campaign against Proposition 6 consists of showing voters how the increased revenues would fix roads and bridges in their neighborhoods.

Polling by a nonpartisan organization shows that between January and October of this year, support for Proposition 6 fell from 47 percent to 41 percent. Proponents of the proposition attribute the change to the inclusion of the ballot title in the more recent polling. Opponents attribute the change to how their campaign against Proposition 6 is resonating among voters. It probably also helps that opponents have raised $44 million, whereas proponents of Proposition 6 have raised $5 million.

One recipient of the official-looking mailer explained his dislike for it by noting that, “I felt like they were trying to pull one over on people who want to believe voting against every tax is a good thing.” On the other hand, a supporter argued that the mailer “ is just getting the conversation started about what the phrasing actually means on the bills we're voting on. I think the layperson doesn't understand the government rhetoric. They make it as complicated as possible."

Though surely there are better ways to title the ballot measure, claiming that the title is rhetoric and that people don’t understand the language is quite an overstatement, and does not justify trying to make campaign statements appear to come from election officials. There is a process for contesting ballot language, and a decision not to follow that process might turn out not to have been wise.

What title would I have put on the ballot? Something along these lines: “REQUIRE VOTER APPROVAL OF FUEL TAXES AND VEHICLE FEES ENACTED TO REPAIR HIGHWAYS AND BRIDGES, THUS ELIMINATING EXISTING AND FUTURE ROAD REPAIR PROJECTS.” In crafting this language, I try to avoid the proponents’ favored language, which omits the impact of approval, and I try to avoid putting the funding consequence ahead of the purpose of the proposal. I am confident neither side would be happy with my language, which perhaps suggests it sits nicely in the middle.

From the outset of this blog, I have made it a point to work Halloween into MauledAgain, usually looking for the silly or goofy but occasionally taking a more serious approach. The posts began with Taxing "Snack" or "Junk" Food (2004), and have continued through Halloween and Tax: Scared Yet? (2005), Happy Halloween: Chocolate Math and Tax Arithmetic (2006), Tricky Treating: Teaching Tax Trumps Tasty Tidbit Transfers (2007), Halloween Brings Out the Lunacy (2007), A Truly Frightening Halloween Candy Bar (2008), Unmasking the Deductibility of Halloween Costumes (2009), Happy Halloween: Revenue Department Scares Kids Into Abandoning Pumpkin Sales (2010), The Scary Part of Halloween Costume Sales Taxation (2011), Halloween Takes on a New Meaning and It Isn’t Happy (2012), Some Scary Halloween Thoughts (2013), The Inequality of Halloween? (2014), When Candy Isn’t Candy (2015), Beyond Scary: Tax-Based Halloween Costumes (2016), and Another Halloween Treat? I Think Not.

About a week ago, in Halloween is Spooky, Taxes on Halloween Treats Are Even Spookier, a writer at InformationStation, pointing out that Americans spend about $8.4 billion on Halloween costumes, decorations, greeting cards, and candy. The writer explained that in many states, the sales tax applies to the purchase of candy, even though most sales tax statutes exempt food and grocery items. In states that do not exempt candy, the rationale apparently is that candy is not food.

More than a decade ago, in Halloween and Tax: Scared Yet?, I described my surprise at discovering some candy bars contained flour and thus were not treated as candy for sales tax purposes in several states. In When Candy Isn’t Candy, I revisited the issue, pointing out the silliness that telling a child standing at the door with a sack or pillowcase that the candy bar being dropped into the container isn’t candy. Last year, in Another Halloween Treat? I Think Not, I addressed the notice from the Tennessee Department of Revenue explaining that candy is not eligible for the lower sales tax rate applicable to food and food ingredients because candy is not food.

Perhaps someone will argue that chocolate candy ought to fit within the sales tax exemption applicable to drugs. After all, chocolate is medicinal. Aside from all the other benefits of chocolate, the receipt of candy at Halloween makes people happy, and being happy brings good health, which is a good thing. Yes, I am doing my best to justify eating candy. It’s a taxing effort, and I don’t stand a ghost of a chance of persuading my physicians that it’s good for me to ingest sugar.

Perhaps the title of this commentary should be A Tax I Have Not Supported and Still Do Not Support, but that’s probably a bit too long. If I shorten it to A Tax I Have Not and Do Not Support, the grammar police will be disappointed.

Some readers of MauledAgain have concluded that I support unlimited taxation and taxes of every kind. Yet careful readers would have noted that not every tax gets my support. For example, I opposed the Philadelphia soda tax, and despite its survival when challenged in court, I continue to consider its to be flawed in many respects. It is an example of “It’s easy to tax this, so let’s tax it.”

Another tax that I have not only opposed but that has baffled me is the medical devices tax. It was enacted as part of the Affordable Care Act. When I first learned of it, I wondered, “Why tax something that is designed to lower the cost of health care?” My reasoning was that these devices prevent more expensive health problems in the future. To me, taxing medical devices was as unwise as taxing vaccines. Few, if any, states, for example, impose sales taxes on prescription drugs.

So why was an excise tax on medical devices enacted as part of the Affordable Care Act? Simply because it is a tax that raises revenue, and revenue is necessary to underwrite the costs of extending health care to more citizens. Why was this tax chosen rather than some other tax, for example, a tax on excess health care industry profits or on health care industry over-billings? Why not seek revenue from health insurance coverage denial decisions that turn out to be wrong and cost doctors, hospitals, and patients more money than they otherwise would have spent?

The tax has never gone into effect. It has been delayed several times. Proposals to eliminate it have surfaced since the day it was proposed. Some of those proposals have been passed by the House or the Senate, but somehow the two bodies haven’t managed to team up and get the tax removed. Now another effort is underway to remove the tax. Arguments in support of repeal, such as Wayne Winegarden’s piece in Forbes and a study by the Tax Foundation, are beginning to resurface.

Why all the bother if implementation of the tax keeps getting delayed? The primary problem is the uncertainty. The tax hangs like a sword over the medical device manufacturers who would pay the tax, making it difficult for them to engage in long-term planning. Some reports indicate that jobs in the industry have been lost because of the uncertainty. Readers of this blog know that I am not a fan of tax uncertainty.

So why has the tax not been removed? Because when computing long-term revenue for purposes of federal budgets, which must satisfy certain projections, the revenue expected from the tax is used to help meet those requirements. That is nonsense. What’s next, a proposed tax on breathing air that would come into effect in 2024 for purposes of balancing the long-term federal budget? Is it any wonder that I am among the vast majority of Americans who give the Congress very unfavorable ratings?

The health care system needs to be fixed. It’s a mess. It is saddled with inefficiency, price gouging, artificial restrictions, and insufficient preventive care. However it is fixed, if at all, a tax on what people should be doing, such as manufacturing medical devices, getting vaccinations, and exercising, ought not be burdened with a tax to fund the treatment of diseases and injiries caused by smoking, vaping, misuse of dangerous substances, drunk driving, reckless behavior, air pollution, water pollution, food pollution, and other activities and practices that are killing humans. Surely a species that calls itself sapiens sapiens can figure this out.

The idea of trying to amass tens of millions or billions of dollars has never appealed to me. What would I do with it? I don’t need it. But there are people who need it, because money breeds money, and those who never have, in their own minds, enough money, need every bit that they can get. Is it for bragging rights? Is it to purchase the world and lord over it as global god? Is it addiction? Is it compensation for some unrecognized subconscious shortcoming?

There are many ways of amassing money. Hard work. Luck. Winning the birth lottery. Theft, robbery, embezzlement, fraud. Investment. When it comes to investment, most people think of bank accounts, stocks, bonds, real estate, precious metals, and commodities. But there are other types of investment, available to those who already have amassed large sums of money. There’s the hedge fund. There’s private equity. They’re not secrets, though most Americans aren’t familiar with how they work.

Hedge funds pursue high risk investments in hopes of hitting it big. Private equity consists of funds not listed on a public exchange. In one sense, the sole proprietor who owns a $300,000 landscape business owns private equity, though those are not the sort of investments that come to mind when people familiar with private equity think of it.

What do hedge funds and private equity do? One path of investment is to acquire public companies and turn them private, or to invest in public companies that are in trouble and hope they turn it around. But increasingly, private equity and hedge funds are grabbing distressed businesses simply to extract the last bits of value and to abandon what’s left. As explained in this article, too often, when given the opportunity to turn a distressed business in the direction of modernization, hedge fund and private equity managers prefer to take out money than to invest enough to turn the business around. This is what has happened with Sears, in which a controlling interest was purchased by hedge fund ESL Investments. It failed. Toys ‘R’ Us was acquired by KRR, Bain Capital, and Vornado Realty Trust. It failed. It happened to Gymboree, another Bain Capital investment. It failed. It happened to Payless ShoeSource, owned by Blum Capital and Golden Gate Capital. It failed. It happened to Radio Shack, in which Standard General had a substantial interest. It failed. Twice. It happened to Fairway, owned by Blackstone. It failed. The same outcome fell upon The Limited, Wet Seal, Claire’s, Aeropostale, Nine West, Brookstone, David’s Bridal, and Sports Authority.

From the perspective of the hedge funds and private equity, these aren’t tragedies. These have been good investments. From the perspective of employees, customers, and the malls in which these businesses rented space, these transactions have been disaster. Granted, retail stores have faced competition from their on-line counterparts, but would not saving one of these retailers included plans to go online? That didn’t happen. It didn’t happen because the new owners preferred not to put in even more money but to take out what was left. Worse, according to investment officer Jack Ablin, “many private equity investors lack the expertise to make the shift from traditional retail to online commerce.” Yet, surely they had the money to hire people who had the expertise. They didn’t, because, according to that investment officer, those investors “were also reluctant to commit more capital for the long-term to transform these struggling retailers.”

As noted in this article, “Moody's Investor Service said David's and Sears are both less likely to pay their creditors because they are owned by private-equity investment firms, whose ‘aggressive financial policies,’ heavy borrowing, and focus on taking money out of firms tend to result in a lower likelihood that retailers they own will pay their debts. Some 92 percent of companies owned by 16 large private equity firms are rated at junk-bond levels, compared to 40 percent of operator-owned or corporate-owned stores.” How does it work? According to Ted Gavin, a partner in a turnaround firm, "A lot of retailers that have gone belly-up are private-equity-owned. It's pretty constant. They make incestuous loans to these companies at high rates, and they charge excessive fees. Cumbersome debt burdens, and owners taking fees simply for being an owner, does nothing good, and can precipitate distress."

Thousands of stores have closed. Hundreds of thousands of jobs have disappeared, in numbers far greater than the handful of jobs created by expanding online retailers. Shopping malls sit vacant, or have become virtual ghost towns with a smattering of open stores. And there’s more.

Serendipitously, at about the same time I was reading the articles I’ve mentioned, I was made aware of a situation that cuts closer to home. More than thirty years ago, I became a customer of a small, local heating and air conditioning company. A decade later, that company was bought out by a larger company. Then a few years later, that larger company was bought out by an even larger company. A decade after that, the even larger company was bought out by a very large company. Each time, the office staff and technicians with whom I dealt carried on. Continuity prevailed. Very recently, a competitor company, owned by a private equity firm, gobbled up the company currently handling my heating and air conditioning services. It let most of the office staff and technicians go, the opposite of job creation. It has been grabbing every competitor it can, across a half dozen states. It is buying customers, in an effort to sell units rather than focus on maintenance and repair. It installs one brand, its technicians are expert only with that brand, and the advice to customers with other brands, no matter the age, is to purchase new units. It has decided not to renew most existing service contracts. Surely it is no secret that the company’s goal is to control the market, if not establish a monopoly. Reviews are mediocre at best and customers complain about high prices. When I called because I needed something adjusted on one of my heaters, I was told the company doesn’t service that unit. It did not matter that I have a service contract in place. Bigger is not better, and being a number rather than a customer with whom office staff and technicians are familiar also is not better. Well, it’s better for those private equity investors whose need for more money is unlimited and eternal.

Is it only a matter of time before private equity disease puts this company into the list of failed enterprises? I do not intend to sit around to see if that happens. It’s too risky. At the moment, there still exist some of those smaller, local operations much like the one with which I started some decades ago. As for the existing service contract, my plan is to terminate it once I have a new one in place with another company, ask for a refund, and learn how much effort it will take to get that refund.

I wonder how things would have turned out if tax cuts had not been handed out to these folks during the past two decades. I wonder if they would have had the resources to do what they have done, are doing, and intend to continue doing. Retail stores probably still would have failed – they have, for many decades – but the resources that remained would not have been channeled into the hands of those already drowning in wealth. Perhaps not as many stores would have closed. Perhaps not as many people would have lost jobs. Perhaps some businesses would have hired people willing and able to take them online.

There are many lessons to learn from these events. Sometimes learning a lesson is helpful for the future. Sometimes learning a lesson comes too late, and the future is altered forever, often in a bad way. Perhaps we have run out of time.

For almost a decade and a half, I have advocated the enactment of mileage-based road fees to replace the increasingly less effective and less efficient liquid fuels tax. One slice of my reasoning is not unlike the realization, a long time ago, that reliance on taxes imposed on telegraph messages wasn’t going to work once newer technology came along. I have explained how the mileage-based road fee works, and why it is the best solution on the table, in posts such as Tax Meets Technology on the Road, Mileage-Based Road Fees, Again, Mileage-Based Road Fees, Yet Again, Change, Tax, Mileage-Based Road Fees, and Secrecy, Pennsylvania State Gasoline Tax Increase: The Last Hurrah?, Making Progress with Mileage-Based Road Fees, Mileage-Based Road Fees Gain More Traction, Looking More Closely at Mileage-Based Road Fees, The Mileage-Based Road Fee Lives On, Is the Mileage-Based Road Fee So Terrible?, Defending the Mileage-Based Road Fee, Liquid Fuels Tax Increases on the Table, Searching For What Already Has Been Found, Tax Style, Highways Are Not Free, Mileage-Based Road Fees: Privatization and Privacy, Is the Mileage-Based Road Fee a Threat to Privacy?, So Who Should Pay for Roads?, Between Theory and Reality is the (Tax) Test, Mileage-Based Road Fee Inching Ahead, Rebutting Arguments Against Mileage-Based Road Fees, On the Mileage-Based Road Fee Highway: Young at (Tax) Heart?, To Test The Mileage-Based Road Fee, There Needs to Be a Test, What Sort of Tax or Fee Will Hawaii Use to Fix Its Highways?, And Now It’s California Facing the Road Funding Tax Issues, If Users Don’t Pay, Who Should?, Taking Responsibility for Funding Highways, Should Tax Increases Reflect Populist Sentiment?, When It Comes to the Mileage-Based Road Fee, Try It, You’ll Like It, Mileage-Based Road Fees: A Positive Trend?, Understanding the Mileage-Based Road Fee, Tax Opposition: A Costly Road to Follow, and Progress on the Mileage-Based Road Fee Front?.

Now comes a report that the mileage-based road fee has become an issue in the race for governor of Illinois. According to Eric Zorn, Democratic candidate J. B. Pritzker has said that the mileage-based road fee is “something we should look at.” He added, “We have to be careful about how it gets implemented, and that’s why it should only be a test at this point.” The Republican candidate, Bruce Rauner responded, according to Zorn, with indignation, saying, “Pritzker came out and said, ‘Let's tax everybody by the miles they drive — let’s put a box in people’s cars — track how many miles when they drive to work, when they drive to school, when they go to the grocery store.’ That is big government, big taxing.” A Rauner campaign add claims, “He wants a car tax. How much is it going to cost us just to drive to a family member’s house?” Pritzker then deftly claimed that he “has never proposed a vehicle mileage tax.”

What a mess. Rauner’s only solution to the crumbling highway system in Illinois is to lower the wages of construction workers. Neither candidate is willing to support an expansion of the sales tax, or subjecting retirement income to the income tax.

Pritzker, in Zorn’s opinion, is cowardly for not fighting back and explaining why Rauner is wrong. I agree. He considers Rauner a coward for not offering any constructive ideas to deal with a serious problem. I agree.

It is clear from Rauner’s statements that he either does not understand the mileage-based road fee or despite understanding it, has chosen to engage in misrepresentation as part of his campaign. Collecting a tax to maintain roads on which people drive is not big government nor is it big taxing. It is simply the charging of a fee adequate to cover the costs of what is being provided to the people who pay the fee. He also fails to recognize, let alone mention, that enacting a mileage-based road fee would be accompanied by an elimination of the Illinois gasoline tax. He, and other opponents of the fee, fail to explain that road users have been paying less and less gasoline tax because their vehicles are more fuel efficient, yet their vehicles do as much, if not more, damage to the roads because most of the vehicles are just as heavy, if not heavier,.

Zorn advocates a shift to the mileage-base road fee, as do many other commentators, public policy analysts, economists, politicians, scientists, and people with a good bit of common sense. He notes, as I have, that the fee could be tailored at different rates based on the weight of vehicles, the residency of vehicle owners, the time of day, the density of the traffic, that the fee could be waived for charities, and that technology permits abating the fee for miles driven on toll roads. He notes that the biggest concern about the fee is privacy, an issue I put to rest in Mileage-Based Road Fees: Privatization and Privacy and Is the Mileage-Based Road Fee a Threat to Privacy?.

Zorn points out something I’ve tried to emphasize in my advocacy for the mileage-based road fee. He states, “But under such a user-pays system, what we pay would more fairly reflect the benefit each of us receives from having access to a smooth network of roads.” Perhaps what inspires the opposition is the sense of entitlement that has infected so many people, rich and poor alike, that they ought not be required to pay for what they take, what they use, and what they damage or destroy. What makes it worse is the inability of so many people to understand that it makes more sense to pay this fee, even if it amounts to more than the gas tax being paid, than it does to run the risk of paying multiple times more for car repairs, injuries, and even deaths caused by deficient highways, because those events are almost certain to happen to most people over a long enough period of time. Ignorance, whether Rauner’s inability to understand the mileage-based road fee or taxpayers’ inability to think through the arithmetic, once again demonstrates why it is the underlying reason for so many problems and the chief threat to the evolution and survival of the human species.

Ignorance is high on my list of dislikes. Unlike some things that I don’t like, ignorance can be avoided, and in most instances it is easily avoided. When ignorance is prevalence, liars find it easier to do their evil work. Readers of this blog know that dislike ignorance of any kind, and though I tend to focus on tax ignorance, I also pay attention to financial ignorance and some other types of the malady. I’ve written about it so often that I doubt I can find every post in which I described the ill effects of ignorance. Some of them include Tax Ignorance, Is Tax Ignorance Contagious?, Fighting Tax Ignorance, Why the Nation Needs Tax Education, Tax Ignorance: Legislators and Lobbyists, Tax Education is Not Just For Tax Professionals, The Consequences of Tax Education Deficiency, The Value of Tax Education, More Tax Ignorance, With a Gift, Tax Ignorance of the Historical Kind, A Peek at the Production of Tax Ignorance, When Tax Ignorance Meets Political Ignorance, Tax Ignorance and Its Siblings, Looking Again at Tax and Political Ignorance, Tax Ignorance As Persistent as Death and Taxes, Is All Tax Ignorance Avoidable?, Tax Ignorance in the Comics, Tax Meets Constitutional Law Ignorance, Ignorance in the Face of Facts, Ignorance of Any Kind, Aside from Tax, Reaching New Lows With Tax Ignorance, and Rampant Ignorance About Taxes, and Everything Else, Becoming An Even Bigger Threat.

What prompts me to write today is a new manifestation of ignorance circulating on social media. Typeset in various solid color backgrounds are these words: “Were any of you aware that ALL the Democrats voted AGAINST the 2.8% Social Security cost of living increase?” My distaste has nothing to do with the political party that is mentioned, for surely the same nonsense with a different political party being mentioned will surface someday, but reflects my disgust at the inability of Americans who vote to understand that there has been no vote against Social Security cost of living increases. As an aside, note that the clown who wrote this message doesn’t bother to specify whether those allegedly voting against the increase were members of the House, the Senate, a state legislature, or participants in a referendum. That, of course, is a red flag that can be noticed by those who understand what they ought to understand.

Social Security cost of living increases are automatic. As described in the Social Security Administration’s explanation, legislation enacted in 1973 provides a formula that measures the increase in the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, known as CPI-W, which is calculated each month by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The cost of living adjustment equals the percentage increase, if any, in CPI-W from the average for the third quarter of the current year to the average for the third quarter of the last year in which there was a cost of living adjustment.

This is not the first time nonsense about social security cost of living increases has circulated. A few years ago, when inflation was so low there was no increase, someone or some organization tried to pin the outcome on Congress, as described in this rebuttal of that ignorant claim. And a decade ago, another, or perhaps the same, person or organization tried to pin the lack of an increase on certain members of Congress, even though the reason for no increase was the fact that the cost of living had gone down due to plunging oil prices, as noted in this FactCheck article.

Why does this ignorant nonsense keep popping up? Notice that it pops up when there is no increase and now, even when there is an increase. Someone or some organization or group of organizations with an agenda is behind this, just as someone or some organization or group of organizations is behind all of the nonsensical and ignorant misinformation being spewed into modern culture. My guess is that the goal is distraction, to avert people’s eyes and ears from the now openly expressed plans to cut or eliminate Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Perhaps it is some sort of damage control.

The antidote, as I’ve expressed for decades, is education. It’s a question of whether enough humans, who insanely call themselves sapiens sapiens, can figure out how to use their brains to think for themselves and to ponder the likelihood of a claim being true, false, or half-baked before spreading it among others. Being theological for a moment, I consider the Last Judgment not so much the “here are a list of your sins” authoritative approach preached by some denominations, but a matter of educational discourse beginning with a statement and question, “I gave you many gifts, including a brain. What did you do with them?” We will have all eternity to ponder the responses. Heaven may be the satisfaction of realizing we did our best despite occasional failures, and Hell may simply be the realization that we didn’t take full advantage of the ability to think for ourselves, recognize truth, and despise ignorance and lies.

Three years ago, in When the Rich Beg, for Tax Breaks, I wrote about the request by Disney Corp. to extend by 30 years a tax break it negotiated in 1996. As I explained in that commentary:

The exemption provides that if the city of Anaheim ever enacts an entertainment gate tax, it will not apply to Disneyland. Anaheim has not enacted such a tax, but faced with increasing financial pressures, it’s not guaranteed that it would not enact such a tax in the future.

So what is the basis for Disney escaping the tax? Apparently it plans an expansion of Disneyland, which it promises will several thousand construction jobs and about 2,000 permanent jobs.

I criticized this reasoning as follows:

The problem with this justification is that every business and every individual contributes to the creation of jobs, and those jobs benefit the economy because the individuals holding the jobs earn money that they spend, in turn infusing economic energy into businesses. Even self-employed individuals ratchet up the economy. If creating a job justifies tax breaks, then everyone is entitled to being exempt from taxation. Of course, that’s part of the plan. Without taxes, there is no government. Necessary services would be privatized, far beyond what already has been put into the hands of the back-room oligarchs, and instead of paying taxes, citizens would be paying fees to enormous enterprises who could charge what they want, as there would be no government to regulate them or district attorneys or attorneys general to prosecute them for mistreating the citizenry, oh excuse me, the serfs.

So if Disney doesn’t receive its desired tax break, what would it do? Pack up and leave? The cost of doing so far exceeds the value of the tax break. Refuse to expand its facility? Perhaps, but again, it would be cutting off its nose to spite its face. No, what it would do is add the tax to the cost of a ticket. And that makes sense. It shifts to those making use of the services provided by Anaheim to Disney a cost that otherwise would be imposed on all taxpayers, including those who do not benefit from, or make use of, Disneyland.

Reader Morris has alerted me to news from a few weeks ago that the exemption preventing Anaheim from subjecting Disney to a gate tax, along with other tax breaks, will not be renewed. What’s interesting about this development is that the city council voted unanimously to terminate the exemptions and tax breaks after Disney officials asked them to do so. The president of Disneyland Resort called the tax breaks “divisive.” It appears, though, that by relinquishing those tax breaks, Disney qualifies for an exemption from a question on next month’s ballot that would raise the minimum wage to $18 per hour by 2022 for employees of companies receiving tax breaks from Anaheim. Disney has financed opposition to the ballot question.

Though some expressed hope that the request to terminate the tax breaks “signals a new era of goodwill and trust between Orange County’s largest city and its largest employer,” continuing debates among city officials about the role Disney plays in Anaheim politics suggests that goodwill is not in the spotlight.

When I read the headline of the article reader Morris sent me, “Anaheim council accedes to Disney’s request, nixes tax breaks,” I thought, “Great. A large corporation has seen the light.” Then I read the article. Oh, well, they say hope springs eternal. Perhaps it is foolish of me to think that those focused on the acquisition of dollars and infinite growth of the “bottom line” would discover the wisdom of moderation and balance.