Hidden taxes.... State says I must now register all ATVs

[Porsche-O-Phile]

So get rid of the ATVs if it bothers you that much... Simple enough choice.

[pwd72s]

Lebanon, Oregon just installed a "stormwater" fee. Yep, in the heart of Oregon's
Willamette Valley, they tax the rain.

The best move I made was moving OUT of the city limits some decades ago...

[red-beard]

Originally Posted by Tobra

If Taxachusetts is anything like Kalifornia, it is much easier to levy a fee than a tax. That is why everything here is called a "fee."

I am not dminishing the coward element of it, but here it is a matter of expediency.

Massachusetts has nothing on the ability to tax like Kalifornia. In fact, it is a tax haven compared to NY State.

After my divorce, NY State told me I had to pay income taxes on my ex-wife's income.

I told them I was divcorced - They said it was during the years I was married
I told them that she never worked in NY, only MA. And we lived in MA only, so she never lived in NY.

They didn't care. Since we paid our FEDERAL income tax jointly, we had to pay tax to NY on everything. I appealed this all the way to the top of the deptartment of Taxation. I had to pay. I think it was $750, but still!

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Agreed, MA isn't all that bad. In fact they've got a few advantages over NH - the most obvious being Proposition 2-1/2 (which limits property tax increases to 2.5%). NH has no such protection and has higher property taxes, but no tax on anything else (actually I think there's an estate tax but I'll have to check).

Most of my reasons for choosing to live in NH deal with their laizez-faire approach to governance, not necessarily the taxes per se. I can pretty much do whatever I want here. Guns? Cars with no smog laws? Sure, no problem. MA is a lot more intrusive with its code of laws and restrictions in general, but that's the nice thing about having different states - each can adopt its own philosophy regarding the extent of government regulation.

Me? I choose the state with the motto, "Live Free or Die". And they seem to espouse it too. Something to be said for that.

I do kinda' get burned on taxes though - I pay the (higher) NH property tax and then pay the MA income tax since I work in MA on top of it. If I worked in NH I wouldn't get whacked on that, but unfortunately we don't have a presence there.

Kalifornia was a MILLION times worse than MA with respect to either taxes and level of government intrusion in peoples' day-to-day lives, number of laws, etc. Compared to NH, it's apples and oranges entirely. It'd be like comparing the wild west to life under the Third Reich.

[jyl]

There's probably an exception for "farm equipment".

[techweenie]

You mention corporate taxes, but many of the largest corporations (like ExxonMobile, GE, Bank of America) often pay $0.

IOW, the license fee you pay on one ATV will be more than the tax paid by all three of the above corporations, combined.

[red-beard]

Originally Posted by techweenie

You mention corporate taxes, but many of the largest corporations (like ExxonMobile, GE, Bank of America) often pay $0.

IOW, the license fee you pay on one ATV will be more than the tax paid by all three of the above corporations, combined.

Show examples. Usually when a corporation is not paying taxes, it is losing money. When a giant one isn't paying taxes, it isn't loopholes, it is a loss of money.

When did Amazon start paying taxes? It was fairly recently.

The whole "80% of corporations do not pay taxes" is a bunch of BS, since it means they are losing money. 80% of corporations fail in the first 2 years. Those corporations are not making money.

My corp has paid taxes every year. But, this will be the first year we are actually making more than a handful of money.

What do you think about GM being given a huge tax break where it will not pay taxes for the next 20 years?

[RWebb]

Originally Posted by pwd72s

Lebanon, Oregon just installed a "stormwater" fee. Yep, in the heart of Oregon's
Willamette Valley, they tax the rain.

The best move I made was moving OUT of the city limits some decades ago...

nope, they are taxing you for the cost of runoff from your property, esp. for impermeable surfaces

it costs them $$ to control the pollution (those oil & grease dripping vehicles for one), so they are passing that onto to you

Lane COUNTY is thinking about doing it too -- that's the county, not the cities in the county

[RWebb]

re" corp. taxes: they often get special breaks so they will create jobs, and there are many other loopholes a corp. can use to shelter income - not to say that many are really not making a profit when they have 0 taxes

back to the topic:

what state is this?

are these driven on public land at all? state, BLM, USFS, etc.?

are they driven on public roads at all?

[RWebb]

oh yeh - you also left out the tax or user fee we have had to pay to camp in a federal campground; that started with Reagan, as did most of the "user fee" movement

[techweenie]

Corporations virtually never pay anywhere near 35%, and the examples I put up above paid 0% in 2009. Here is an article on it that indicates part of the answer.

In Pictures: What The 25 Top U.S. Companies Pay In Taxes - What The 25 Top U.S. Companies Pay In Taxes - Forbes.com

[red-beard]

It is pretty tough to not pay taxes based on a loophole or shelter, etc. Usually the company is already not making money.

[red-beard]

Originally Posted by techweenie

Corporations virtually never pay anywhere near 35%, and the examples I put up above paid 0% in 2009. Here is an article on it that indicates part of the answer.

In Pictures: What The 25 Top U.S. Companies Pay In Taxes - What The 25 Top U.S. Companies Pay In Taxes - Forbes.com

So far, in the top 10, most pay a lot of taxes. GE and BOA are the exceptions.

[red-beard]

And those evil Healthcare companies:

18: UnitedHealth Group
Sales: $87 billion
Pretax income: $5.8 billion
Income taxes: $2 billion
Tax rate: 34.2%

14: Cardinal Health
Sales: $100 billion
Pretax income: $1.7 billion
Income taxes: $500 million
Tax rate: 31.4%

[red-beard]

Oh and the Evil Oil companies:

No. 25: Valero
Sales: $68 billion
Pretax income: (-$450 million)
Income taxes: (-$100 million)
Tax rate: N/A

A gasoline glut means no profits or taxes for Valero

Yeah, losing money = no taxes paid

[techweenie]

Profits were reported overseas in most multinationals on the list reporting losses in the U.S. What an amazing coincidence. Like ExxonMobil, which made $52 billion gross overall and paid $0 US corp. tax.

the point is, I'm not going to shed any tears over US corporate tax rates. Corporations have bought and paid for excellent tax loopholes.

[ODDJOB UNO]

welcome to the world. yeah those dum-azz kalif morons decided to have an OHV(off highway) tag/tax on every OHV. and next thing ya know it lands in airy-zoney.



so to be legal now. you must get an OHV plate. an OHV registration tag for each and every one of yer toys.


FEEK THAT! i have (8) dirtbikes and (1) quad.




and they have hired (3) az game and fish OHV cops to stop everyone and ensure compliance.


and they have hired (3) BLM cops to stop ALL OHV's and ensure compliance.




and they tell me all the MONEY is going into TRAIL IMPROVEMENT!




MY AZZZ! i have not seen one trail/ road IMPROVED!



all i have seen is more areas closed to OHV's and we are treated like terrorists.



basically with budget cuts the drill is..............."we dont have enough LEO's to patrol an area..................SO WE CLOSE IT OFF!"



yeah this one hits home and i dont like it one bit. any clown politico who voted for this crap is on my POO LIST NOT TO RE-ELECT!



its all a money grab.



heres the "made for tv movie" script..................kid/adult out riding middle of BFE boondocks. doesnt have plate or registration. cops show up. throw on cherries. kid adult pulls over. gets FINED $480 bucks 1st offense! or they DITCH THE COP and the swat team is called, the copper chopper ghetto bird and they end up busted for FELONY FLIGHT punishable by 5 YEARS(ask me how i know). or worse if its some trigger happy moron!



if they could tax AIR......................they would.

[patssle]

Just move to Texas, half the rest of the state already has! The sooner you do it, the more money you'll save

Sad read on Cali: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/255320/two-californias-victor-davis-hanson?sms_ss=facebook&at_xt=4d0a1f426ac9bdc3%2C0

[jyl]

Here is how a multinational corporation arranges to pay far less than the statutory US corporate income tax rate.

They set up operations in low tax countries, or countries which will give them large tax breaks. They transfer assets to those foreign operations, in particular intellectual property assets. They set up transfer pricing between their US and foreign operations that favors the foreign operation. Thus the US operation shows very little profit or a loss, and they pay little to no US tax. All the profit is shown at the foreign operation, which only pays a low tax rate. If you would like confirmation of this, consider how many multinationals show $3BN of cash on the balance sheet but almost all of that is overseas. Because that's where the profit was, so that's why the cash piled up there. If they were to bring that cash back to the US, they'd have to pay tax on it. Every decade or so, the business lobby persuades congress to pass a special amnesty allowing foreign cash to be repatriated at a special low tax rate. Usually the argument is that the cash will be used to create US jobs and investment. The last such, in the mid 2000s, actually required the cash to used for US jobs and investment. So it was - and the companies simply didn't use their existing US cash flow for those purposes. Therefore, there was no net increase in spending on US jobs and investment. Cool, huh?

We (investors) talk to managements all the time about this. They are proud of their tax strategies, investors want them to do it, we're always asking them isn't there something they can do to pay less tax? Right after we ask them why they can't cut headcount and boost operating profits . . . And right before we talk about accelerating their outsourcing to China . . .

People think that what's good for business is good for America. Well, it is for the Americans who own stocks. For the Americans who need jobs, you can take comfort that one thing a CFO will always boast of to investors is how few of the headcounts he is adding are in high-cost regions, i.e. the US, Canada, Western Europe, etc. Everyone congratulates him.

I don't blame the companies. Their job is to maximize profits in any manner that is legal, not to care about the greater good of the country. The people's job, via government, is to set up a legal framework so that companies will maximize their profits by doing things that are consistent with the greater good of the country.

[enzo1]

Originally Posted by island911

Govt bubble - It's a ratchet effect.

that is, when the economy is really humming, the bureaucrats get a good chunk of change. Then, when the economy slows, the bureaucrats feel that they need to raise taxes to maintain their lifestyle. ...Then, should the economy start humming again, the bureaucrats get even more money, have even bigger expenditures . . . and when the economy slows again, they raise taxes again, to make up your for your production short-falls.

...keeps on ratcheting until revolt.

I'm ready!