House takes aim at $388 million in sales tax breaks

House Finance and Tax chief Ellyn Bogdanoff tonight released the list of sales tax exemptions her committee has decided it wants to review. Together, they total $388 million. The list includes: movie tickets, agricultural property, fitness clubs, skyboxes, school sporting events, religious items, eyeglasses and contacts and bottled water.

There's clearly no promise here than any of them will lose their tax exemption status. "Our task is to examine the other side of the ledger to make sure that we are presenting Floridians with a fair and efficient tax system,'' Bogdanoff said. Download Discuss for Repeal List

Comments

It's about time!

The Legislature owes us this review.

If memory serves, for every $1 tax payer's spend, some powerful entity with a well paid lobbyist gets a $2 tax exemption.

"eeenie meeenie miiinie moe...let's see who's going to keep their exemption... will somebody hand me that list of last years GOP campaign contributors, please?"

Eyeglasses are on the list, but not ostrich feed...

Ellen, please just fade away...

[Barack "I'm a crazy marxist fool" Obama]

The UN Conference on racism is a thinly disguised conclave that will bash Israel and the US. That the Obama administration insisted on taking a part in planning this insult to both countries revealed either a naivete breathtaking in its scope or just plain idiocy.

Now, after being a partner to the likes of Libya, Syria, and Russia in mapping out the conference's goals and objectives, the Obama administration has decided that this racist gathering may not be the benign gathering they were hoping for:

White House aides told Jewish leaders on a conference call today that the United States will boycott the United Nations' World Conference on Racism over hostility to Israel in draft documents prepared for the April conference.

The aides, including an advisor to U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, Jennifer Simon, and longtime Obama advisor Samantha Power, said the administration will not participate in further negotiations on the current text or participate in a conference based on the text, sources on the call said.

They left open the option of re-engaging on a "much shorter, much different text," a source said.

The draft outcome document, typically negotiated in advance and available here (.pdf), contains sharp and specific criticism of Israel for its treatment of the Palestinians, and Western European nations and Canada have also signaled that they may boycott the conference in Geneva.

Too late, Mr. President. Your imprimatur is all over that draft. What possessed these stumblebums to make a huge deal out of attending planning sessions and then dropping out when everyone on the planet knew what that draft was going to say two years ago is a mystery? Did they think no one would notice.

Keystone cops diplomacy.

Ellyn maybe you can add new exemptions for Joan Jett albums and White Rain hair spray.

[Milk]

Pork.

[John]

eyeglasses and contacts are medicine RX

NO SALES TAX!

[Barack "Kenya will be richer than USA" Obama]

Let me be very clear on the economics of President Obama’s State of the Union speech and his budget.

He is declaring war on investors, entrepreneurs, small businesses, large corporations, and private-equity and venture-capital funds.

That is the meaning of his anti-growth tax-hike proposals, which make absolutely no sense at all — either for this recession or from the standpoint of expanding our economy’s long-run potential to grow.

Raising the marginal tax rate on successful earners, capital, dividends, and all the private funds is a function of Obama’s left-wing social vision, and a repudiation of his economic-recovery statements. Ditto for his sweeping government-planning-and-spending program, which will wind up raising federal outlays as a share of GDP to at least 30 percent, if not more, over the next 10 years.

RELATED LINKS

Current DateTime: 01:41:45 27 Feb 2009
LinksList Documentid: 29434273
Obama Walking Tightrope On Banks Bailout
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Americans Mixed On Obama's Budget
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This is nearly double the government-spending low-point reached during the late 1990s by the Gingrich Congress and the Clinton administration. While not quite as high as spending levels in Western Europe, we regrettably will be gaining on this statist-planning approach.

Study after study over the past several decades has shown how countries that spend more produce less, while nations that tax less produce more. Obama is doing it wrong on both counts.

And as far as middle-class tax cuts are concerned, Obama’s cap-and-trade program will be a huge across-the-board tax increase on blue-collar workers, including unionized workers. Industrial production is plunging, but new carbon taxes will prevent production from ever recovering. While the country wants more fuel and power, cap-and-trade will deliver less.

The tax hikes will generate lower growth and fewer revenues. Yes, the economy will recover. But Obama’s rosy scenario of 4 percent recovery growth in the out years of his budget is not likely to occur. The combination of easy money from the Fed and below-potential economic growth is a prescription for stagflation. That’s one of the messages of the falling stock market.

[notsosmart]

I like three of the last four items(236, 237, 238) on the list especially with our state cutting back on education and elsewhere. We should stop subsidizing professional sports team, the Professional Golf Hall of Fame and the International Game Fish Association World Center and save approximately $24.7 million!
I would like to tax PRIDE(196) and pick up $1.6 million. Not only would I like to tax PRIDE, I would like a third party audit of PRIDE to determine if the state could be paying too much overhead and determine if the taxpayers should keep funding the program. PRIDE as you know is Florida state prisoners taking jobs away from people that today are probably out of work right now.
The idea of taxing bottled water(110) is intriguing. It is my understanding Nestles gets our water for “FREE” and now the Congresswoman wants us to pay tax on the water. Tsk tsk tsk. If my recollection is correct, charge for the water. By the way, bottled water has been tax exempt since 1949.
Number 20, Charges for renting property assessed as agricultural. If the property is used for tax-exempt purpose, it is tax exempt. If the Congresswoman wants to tax the property regardless of its use, I am against her proposal. An example is farmland can be rented and used as a used car lot.
Number 49, Government participation or sponsoring fees. The Congresswoman ought to look into the meaning of this exemption before she goes any further. It has something to do with 501(c) 3’s and she is not going to remove this.
Number 48. Super Bowl tickets insignificant, yeah right. Raymond James 65,000 seats at $1,000 at 7% bring in $4.55 million at 7% sales tax. OK if the average ticket sold for $800 it still brought in over $3.5 million. I do not call that insignificant.
Number 239, Tax on Perchloroethylene. That stuff is used in Dry Cleaning. Dry Cleaning is a service. Services are not sales taxable. Dry Cleaning is subject to gross receipts tax. I think Real Estate Broker Fees and all commissions ought to be subject to Gross receipts taxes.
I will get off the soapbox for now.

[Barack "No More Voodoo Economics" Obama]

12:41 Please move to Kenya. And please take with you all the corporatist tools of the unsustainable Reaganomic machine. You are absolutely right about one thing, Barack "No More Voodoo Economics" Obama is not going to let you and your ilk set up exactly the same irresponsible system of that's crippled us repeatedly in the past.

My favorites:

Super Bowl football tickets (impact only when held in Florida)
Highschool and college teams' stadium skyboxes
Sales of religious items
Bottled (except carbonated) Water
Sales of U.S. and State flags
Racing dogs by breeders
Alcoholic beverages used by businesses for tasting
Small private aircraft fleet of more than 25 planes
Up to $2.0m annual subsidy for certain professional sports teams.
$2 million annual subsidy for Professional Golf Hall of Fame
$1 m annual subsidy for Intern'l Game Fish Association World Center

[Barack "Kill the Babies" Obama]

Ah - state compulsion; the essence of tyranny. When the state demands that you do something that goes against your most deeply held beliefs, they are exercising the same level of control over you as any dictator or tyrant.

Welcome to our Brave New World - Obama style:

Taking another step into the abortion debate, the Obama administration Friday will move to rescind a controversial rule that allows health-care workers to deny abortion counseling or other family-planning services if doing so would violate their moral beliefs, according to administration officials.

The rollback of the "conscience rule" comes just two months after the Bush administration announced it last year in one of its final policy initiatives.

The new administration's action seems certain to stoke ideological battles between supporters and opponents of abortion rights over the responsibilities of doctors, nurses and other medical workers to their patients.

Seven states, including California, Illinois and Connecticut, as well as two family planning groups, have filed suits challenging the Bush rule, arguing it sacrifices the health of patients to religious beliefs of medical providers.

A couple of caveats; first, the repeal of this rule will not force doctors or nurses to perform abortions. Second, the issue of whether the health care provider should point the patient to alternative professionals who will supply them with what they need is a good one and should be looked at carefully. This matter becomes most controversial when dealing with the "morning after pill" that many pharmacists do not dispense as a matter of religious or moral consideration. But should they direct the woman to another pharmacist who will supply the pill?

Beyond that, this question should be a no brainer for anyone living in a free country. The idea that the Obama administration is contemplating doing away with it says more about their radicalism on the abortion issue than it does health professionals living by their deeply held beliefs.

[Holly]

What about lawyers and accountants?

Tax services - it is about time

[2010]

Palin begins her accession and Obama goes down like Carter---the Obama stagflation will consume liberals.

The UK has a fagg tax. Has anyone looked into that?

[notsosmart]

I just thought of something on the Super Bowl tickets that the Tampa office of the Florida Department of Revenue ought to look into. I agree the Florida Statute states Super Bowl tickets are tax exempt but that means the initial sale by Raymond James Stadium. The statute(s) do not exempt the sales made by resellers like Stub Hub and Ticketmaster or whatever names they go by. In addition, the statutes do not exempt the service charges added to the original ticket prices set by the Glazers/Raymond James Stadium. The state may not have lost all that sales tax money afterall if the Department of Revenue gets off their XXXX.

All of the exempted items are "musts" for the well-heeled repiggie. Those folks don't want to pay anything.
Sky box? Get real...

Palin is a moron. Can't you clowns do any better?

Not so smart:
Those are exempt in another exemption.

[Reform, not change. Who really wants socialism instead of capitalism seriously]

Did you notice that when Gov. Sarah Palin was campaigning for vice-president she talked about "reform?" Candidate Obama campaigned on a different theme, "Change We Can Believe In." In case you weren't paying attention, he had the slogan on the emblazoned on the front of his lectern.

The word "Change" is a curious one. In politics it is most often used in the context of "Time for a Change." It speaks to the periodic need to throw the rascals out. But in left-speak it means something more. It evokes the need for "social change" or "transformative change." Change in this sense means the secular hope for salvation in this world that the left substitutes for the transcendental hope of religion.

Conservatives do not subscribe to the notion of secular salvation. We believe that salvation only comes in the next world. So we don't need to inject transcendental hope into politics. We think in terms of Reform, not Change.

Reform is like cleaning and tidying up a living room before a party. You know that in a couple of hours your room will look like a disaster. But you still do it anyway.

Change is like a makeover. You imagine that,with a new hairstyle, new clothes, and new makeup you life will change and a different kind of man will address himself to you.

It's a good time to start thinking about this as we conservatives watch the change machine at work and yearn instead for good conservative reform, of the kind we might expect from a President Palin or a President Jindal, both of whom already established records as reform governors.

But, whatever we do, let's not start the Palin or the Jindal administration in the clueless manner of the Obama administration.

We don't yet know what the damage from the Obama administration's zero-for-three first month will be. Nobody can. We won't know until November 2010. But at least Republican candidates now have talking points about Democrats:

•The party that talks about ethical government but hires tax cheats;
•The party that talks about open government but practices lobbyist-friendly government;
•The party that talks about stimulus but enacts "porkulus."
Above all the Democratic Party is the party that takes care of its special interests before it steps up to fix the credit system, a party that reverses welfare reform without even a public hearing, a party that criticized a president's defense policies for eight years and then turned around and continued them.

If Republicans are not to stumble like the Democrats we have to get our principles straight before we return to political power. It's not enough just to have a reform program. Here are three good ones.

•1. The Hayek principle: The man in Washington cannot know enough to administer the US economy.
•2. The Novak principle: Think of society as three co-equal sectors: economic, political, and moral/cultural. None of the three should dominate the other two, and no two sectors should gang up on the other one.
•3. The Perrow principle: Watch out for "system accidents" in complex close-coupled systems.
Readers that know about Hayek and Novak may not know about Charles Perrow. He's the liberal sociologist who wrote Normal Accidents: Living with Hish-Risk Technologies after the Three Mile Island accident. He warned about our love affair with efficiency and complexity. It leads to accidents that can't be controlled.

In complex industrial, space, and military systems, the normal accident generally (not always) means that the interactions are not only unexpected, but are incomprehensible for some critical period of time. In part this is because in these human-machine systems the interactions literally cannot be seen. In part it is because, even if they are seen, they are not believed.

Does this seem familiar? Forget the dangers of nuclear plants. Today we worry about excessively complex political and financial systems. And right now, it is painfully obvious, we are saddled with a credit system in which any component failure can bring down the whole system.

We've seen, in the last month what Change means. It means shoveling taxpayers' money at the Democratic base to bail out the Democratic state and local governments that overspent in the boom, and to bail out Democratic homeowners who bought houses they couldn't afford.

The next version of Republican Reform better be different. It needs to start from rock-solid conservative principles

Eliminating special tax exemptions brings equality and fairness to the system. Everybody uses government services such as roads, parks, police and fire protection, and conservative retirees whining about not wanting to pay any taxes at all are the first to have their hand out for monthly Social Security checks and Medicare/Medicaid benefits. The special exemptions resulted from lobbyists lining the pockets of legislators to get a sweet deal while the rest of us have to pay. It's time for the sweet deals to stop and the whininess to end; I'd like to see some old-fashioned patriotism like there used to be in the days of Victory gardens, rationing, recycling and investing in war bonds during WWII. Now it's all about selfishness, lining one's own pockets and unwillingness to do one's fair share for the common good. So now you are asked in a time of crisis to pay a little tax on your luxury skybox or your fancy wine-tasting or your fleet of 25+ personal small planes - seems reasonable and fair when others are being asked to make a lot bigger sacrifices.

11:43, here is another look at your hero, Jindal.
Read it and weep. This is part of what is so wrong with the repiggies today, the inability to acknowledge lies and errors.

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/02/jindals_office_tries_to_spin_katrina_story_digs_it.php?ref=fp1

More repiggie nonsense:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0209/19433.html

Aren't these the same folks who voted enthusiastically for that lying loser?

Why are we not taxing Sky-Boxes?

Just more Republican giveaways to their cronies.

Sounds like Jindal has been tutored by Chris Dodd.

By the way has anyone seen Obama's birth certificate. You would think he was an America hating foreignor the way he is governing so far.

Time for Independents to get elected. Both of these two major parties are full of self dealing and corruption at the expense of the people.

[Issywise]

Florida's sales tax system is a system of preferences and corruption. Equal protection should not mean a buddy of a legislator gets to be exempted from taxes.

Florida's property tax system has been recently turned into a system of tax preferences. It is obscene that in America next door neighbors with identical houses can pay hundreds or thousands of dollars difference in taxes. It's absolutely disgusting that those special treatments are portable to new homes. Our laws vest some of us with special privileges others do not enjoy.

Our state constitution ought to guarantee equal protection under the tax code rather than be a compendium of tax privileges vended out by the political system,

what about enviros

[Forrest]

Getting rid of unfair tax exemptions is a tax reduction for the rest of us.

be careful what you wish for, everyone should realize the benefit of the exemptions passed on to them.

cut our prop. taxes now

**GREAT EDITORIAL - THE LEDGER: TIME TO RE-INVENT LOCAL GOVERNMENT

http://www.theledger.com/article/20090223/NEWS/902230301/1036?Title=New-Property-Tax-Cuts-Reinvent-Local-Government

The way things are going, maybe the state should be giving out rosary beads free instead of getting ready to tax them.

The People want tax reform.

Up to $2.0m annual subsidy for certain professional sports teams = 21.3 million
$2 million annual subsidy for Professional Golf Hall of Fame = 2.3 million
$1 m annual subsidy for Intern'l Game Fish Association World Center = 1.1 million

That's a cool 24.7 million right there, simply for ending cushy kickbacks of taxpayer money to private profit-making enterprises.

[notsosmart]

11:36 AM What do you mean by...
Those are exempt in another exemption.
Thank you.

[notsosmart]

Number 183. Charter Fishing Boats. The boat itself is sales taxable. I wonder where the Congresswoman gets her dollar amounts as I seriously question the accuracy of a non-taxable business having to report its sales activity, yet alone its accuracy.
Number 234. (State) Jobs Tax Credits. The state gives businesses Jobs Tax credits and now the Congresswoman wants to tax it?
Number 214. Railroad Bed Materials. Crist wants to give CSX millions and the Congresswoman wants to tax the dirt etc. the railroad is buying. In the end, Crist will have to give CSX even more money to cover the additional sales taxes.
Number 74. Printing for out of state customers when he provides the paper $18.5 million.
(75) Certain Printed Materials $.4 million.
(181) Subscription newspapers, newsletters...$21.5 million.
(208) Certain Advertising services $16.8 million.
(211) Film and Printing Supplies $7 million. John McKay was a Senator when all these printing & advertising exemption became law. If I am not mistaken so was Jack Latvala a guy that might still have something to do with one of those monthly mailers (Penny Savers?) we get stuffed with coupons.
(78) Non-Resident dealers purchasing items for resale overseas $3.5 million. Should an exporter charge Florida sales tax? If you bought something in quantity from a German merchant for resale in your Clearwater store, would you want to pay sales taxes on the items? Next thing you know we will be taxing items bought for resale right here in our backyard.

[notsosmart]

For anyone interested here is the list of Exemptions and Exclusions the TBRC used last year when it considered deleting some of the 246 items.

http://www.floridatbrc.org/pdf/Tax%20HandbookExclusionsAndExemptions.pdf

[Conservative "Tax Reform" = Corporate Welfare + Gutting Business Regualtion]

2:14 You couldn't be more wrong. Our property tax system treats everyone the equally. If you or I buy a second home, you and I both pay the same. If a business owner buys a home, he gets a homestead exemption on his first home just like you and me. Why should he get a homestead exemption on a for-profit business as well, or a home bought purely for speculation? I don't get an additonal homestead exemption on my source of income - ie my paycheck.

Problem Solved!

7:46 The only re-invention of local government that conservatives are interested in is one tha eliminates business regulation so they can pave and pillage and pollute at will. It is conservative economics that needs to be re-invented; who needs endless cycles of boom and bust that enrich the already wealthy and leave the rest of us holding the bag? Thank God our new President realizes this and is trying to lead us out of the mess.

10:30 You're not kidding! Here are some great ideas for tax reform that will help 98% of the citizens, instead of just the wealthy few:

1. Raise Capital Gains taxes.
2. Stop offshoring of income.
3. Close tax loopholes for the ultra-rich
4. Raise the tax rate on the ultra-rich to 39%

Did I miss any?

Problem Solved!

Rollback taxes and spending to 2002 levels, cap taxation as spending at the annual CPI going forward, eliminate waste, cut all pork, eradicate lobbyists, expand SOH to all property both residential and commercial as a means of control, and vote every incumbent out of office at your first available opportunity.

Problem Solved!

[John]

Get us our property tax reduction Gov Crist!!

[Paul D. Harvill]

This is a good start. Now let's repeal the exemptions for Florida's future.