Let’s Talk Taxes & Fees
When I drove to Chicago over the long holiday weekend with my brother, we were worried about how much the increase in the state gas tax was going to cost us. He drove, and I paid for gas, so I carefully monitored how much gas we put in the car for the trip. His car usually gets about 30 mpg on the Interstate, and a round trip to Chicago usually runs him about 11 gallons. So it turns out that dime increase in gas tax costs me a whole whopping $1.10. Clutch the pearls!!!!
My average cigar costs me $15 and a gin martini, with two olives, $10. So if I give up two martinis and a cigar I can afford to make the trip to Chicago at least 30 times. Yes, I’m being facetious. But I bring that up because of all the gloom and doom coming from the rabid, almost jihadist, anti-tax crowd.
During the entire debate over road funding, these people whined, moaned and gnashed their teeth over the possibility of having to pay for the roads that they use. And it’s not the just roads these people complained about. By now, you’ve heard the story of Republicans raising 45 taxes and fees in the last session. Did any of these people bother to look at what exactly those taxes and fees were? I did. And guess what, it’s unlikely most of the people complaining about the fee increases will ever pay any of them.
For example, do you own a billboard? If not you don’t have to worry about paying the transfer ($40), modification ($100) or permit replacement fee $25), much less pay the penalty for failing timely identify the owner of a billboard promptly when it’s sold. ($400)
Unless you’re a teacher, you can breathe easier about not having to pay the $10 fee increase ($30-$40) every five years to cover the cost of your background check.
If you’re going on the Maury Povich Show to find out who your baby’s daddy is, you might have reason to protest the DNA sample processing fee which went from $2 to $3, but somehow I think you have bigger things to worry about right now.
And of course, there’s the most egregious “fee” of them all. It’s the one that went from $500 to $10,000. Brace yourself. It’s the fee increasing the penalty for operating a pyramid scheme in the state of Indiana.
I don’t know about you, but I am just outraged at this government run amok. What kind of fascist dictatorship do we live in when the government charges you a fee for the service that you are using instead of having it subsidized by the taxpayers for the general fund. This is a crime against humanity.
It’s almost enough to make me want to get together with other like-minded people, drive down to the Statehouse with our torches and pitchforks and storm the place. Unfortunately, since no one wants to pay the 10-cent increase in the gas tax, we’ll have to figure out some other way to get there.
