A number of issues were introduced in my prior diary. They may or may not be worthy of discussion, but let’s talk about Eric Garner. A man that should be alive, working as a horticulturist, and raising his children with his wife.
In addition to all the other difficulties for Black men in the US, they are at higher risk for poor health. From the NYTimes:
Mr. Garner, who was at least 6 feet 3 inches tall and who, friends said, had several health issues: diabetes, sleep apnea, and asthma so severe that he had to quit his job as a horticulturist for the city’s parks department. He wheezed when he talked and could not walk a block without resting, they said.
Medication helps with all those conditions, but they are all also related to diet and being overweight. It hasn’t been reported what level of medical care Mr. Garner had received. As a horticulturist for the NYC Parks and Rec Department, did he not receive adequate health care? If his health conditions exceeded what could be treated well enough for him to retain his job, shouldn’t he have been placed on disability?
In the absence of disability benefits, wasn’t he eligible for Medicaid? Either under the existing or expanded version?
With no job, no money, and seriously poor health, Mr. Garner needed help, but not the kind of help authoritarian LEOs offer.
The NYC health “nanny,” former Mayor Bloomberg, not only doesn’t have a medical license, but isn’t all that swift at micro-economics either. Yes, sure, poor people shouldn’t smoke cigarettes. Bad for their health and pocketbooks. And wealthy people shouldn’t fly in private jets, live in mansions, and cavort on island holidays. Very bad for the environment. Tax the wealthy enough, they’ll reduce their consumption of that which is unhealthy for us all. Tax even more and they’ll find “black market” alternatives for their pleasures.
Imagining raincoat wearing guys on street corners saying “Hey, kid wanna buy a ‘Big Gulp?”
In the Philadelphia area, it’s not uncommon to meet good, white, law-abiding, middle and upper middle-class residents that make “booze runs” to Delaware. Pennsylvania does have, shall we say, interesting liquor laws. Many (all?) originally justified as a means to control alcoholism. Success on that is at best mixed. Yet, overall, how they manage this “pleasure” isn’t onerous (I didn’t notice much difference in prices at PA State liquor stores and prices in CA) and has some pluses. But shouldn’t the state police crack down on the “booze runs?” They are, after all, engaged in an illegal activity to avoid a non-confiscatory level of taxation. Probably not worth the effort. Plus the law-breakers are white and mostly not poor.
Laws that create substantial black markets for perfectly legal products and lead to employing LEOs for enforcement are bad laws for economies and societies.
Phillip Morris currently lists all taxes, including federal, state, local, and sales taxes, as 56.6% of the total cost of a pack of cigarettes.
Note: at 56.6% of the cost of an item, the tax rate is 130%! In NYC it’s more like 240%. Imagine a 240% tax rate on luxury goods for Park Avenue residents. No wonder some pot smokers have concerns about legalization.
Do NY legislators know nothing about what gives rise to black markets? How their “do gooding” and desperation to collect more taxes from poorer residents created this one? Confiscatory and regressive taxation. (Echoes of something from US history?) And don’t Staten Island cops have something better to do than brutally enforce what would seem to be a petty offense?
Apparently not so petty in NY and NYC according this 4/3/14 HuffPo article.
The booming black market for cigarettes in New York City started in the early-2000s, the bodega owner said. In 1997, he said he was selling cigarettes for $2.10 a pack — the same price as in many other states. Now, less than 20 years later, a combination of federal, state and local taxes have driven the average price of a pack in New York City to $12 to $14.
A new report from the Tax Foundation found that 57 percent of cigarettes consumed in New York state in 2012 were smuggled into the state illegally. That’s the highest rate of smuggled cigarettes in the country. New York has the highest state tax on cigarettes and New York City imposes an additional $1.50 levy. [NYC imposes a minimum price/pack of $10.10; with sales tax that would be $11.00.]
PA seems to have avoided creating a black market in cigarettes. Until I looked at this, I honestly had no idea that it’s big in CA as well and would have been bigger if CA voters a few years ago hadn’t rejected another cigarette tax because it didn’t seem fair.
Mr. Eric Garner was and his suppliers are criminals for engaging in commerce without paying the legally imposed taxes. But just how rich is Mr. Jeff Bezos today because he found ways to avoid charging Amazon customers sales tax? This was always bullshit because before on-line retailing there was phone and mail-order retailers and they always collected and paid the proper sales tax based on the customer’s local taxing jurisdiction.
How the on-line retailers got around the requirement was to put the onus of paying sales taxes on the customer. Ha-ha-ha. One reason people purchased on-line was to avoid paying sales tax. Regular sales tax <10% and not a confiscatory 200%. And no police showed up to bust them for not paying up.
Now that Bezos and Amazon are rich, they collect and pay sales taxes for customers in some states
With the new states, about 69% of Americans–nearly 219 million people–will be subject to tax on their Amazon purchases.
That’s a big switch from a few years ago, when Amazon fought to protect customers from sales tax, viewing it as a competitive advantage over brick-and-mortar rivals.
It’s still and will remain an advantage for smaller on-line retailers. Boehner Kills Internet Tax Bill
Tax-free Internet shopping is safe for now thanks to Speaker John A. Boehner.
A bill granting states the ability to force out-of-state websites to collect Internet sales tax is dead, according to the Ohio Republican’s spokesman.
The bill is strongly backed by national brick-and-mortar retailers, who have to collect sales tax on the web because they have operations in the states that collect sales taxes. They often are competing against web outfits that are located out of state and therefore are not required to collect sales tax under a Supreme Court precedent.
Is it merely coincidental that the most regressive tax, sales taxes, has increased substantially over the same period that on-line, non-taxed, sales have grown? (Corporate and high income taxes cuts are another part of the story.) And who has benefited most from that sales/use tax avoidance?
Who has benefited the most from NYC’s exorbitant cigarette tax laws? Cops – because new make work for cops is always welcome. And with the tragic death of Mr. Eric Garner, the anti-taxers.
