The Fair Share Surcharge

I recently saw a receipt from a restaurant in Los Angeles, which included a 4% surcharge labeled ‘Healthy LA’.  Presumably, it is supposed to pay for health care and other benefits for restaurant workers.

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Vermont Must Cap Individual Property Tax Increases

The massive property tax increase coming our way as the result of an education funding system gone out of wildly control poses the very real threat of forcing some – perhaps many – Vermonters out of their homes. It will certainly cause painful choices for household budgets, making it even harder make ends meet in the Green Mountain State.

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Cartoon hit with taxes

Vermont’s Education Property Tax System Is Not Broken

Vermonters head into town meeting week with a massive property tax increase looming over our heads, as much as 40 percent in some communities. There is a collective wail on Front Porch Forum and on social media, at least in my town of Stowe, that “the system is broken!” No, it’s not.

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When Is Someone Paying More Than “Their Fair Share”?

We hear politicians spout it all the time when they are raising our taxes: “We’re just making them (of course not you) pay their fair share.” But what exactly is one’s “fair share,” and at what point can one be considered to be paying MORE than his or her “fair share”?

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Sales Taxes and Stadia

Oklahoma City voters approved a proposal for a new sales tax to fund a $1 billion downtown arena that will keep the NBA’s Thunder in that city through 2050.  Interesting. I’m sure Oklahomans who don’t care for basketball or sales taxes are less than pleased.

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Gas Can

Climate Council Can’t Decide Which Tax It Likes Best

First question: Why do we even have a Climate Council at this point? Why have we ever had one? All these twenty-three (twenty-two, really, because the corrupt Speaker of the House has refused for over a year to appoint a representative from the Fuel Dealers as required by law) unelected, self-important bloviators do is sit … Read more

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