Pacific Legislature Official Thread

[Marokai Backbeat]

My point is that if you're going to exempt something from sales taxes, it has to be because it's a special or important product, or it's disproportionately consumed by a certain group of people. There's no such exceptions for books, which makes the sales tax exemption rather out of place and pointless.

[Alexander Hamilton]

My point is that if you're going to exempt something from sales taxes, it has to be because it's a special or important product, or it's disproportionately consumed by a certain group of people. There's no such exceptions for books, which makes the sales tax exemption rather out of place and pointless.

I would consider books an educational material, possibly all publications could be. Therefore, I consider that a special item to be exempt. You may disagree but as it stands, I'd like to see that clause removed, or work together to find an alternative.

[Marokai Backbeat]

My point is that if you're going to exempt something from sales taxes, it has to be because it's a special or important product, or it's disproportionately consumed by a certain group of people. There's no such exceptions for books, which makes the sales tax exemption rather out of place and pointless.

I would consider books an educational material, possibly all publications could be. Therefore, I consider that a special item to be exempt. You may disagree but as it stands, I'd like to see that clause removed, or work together to find an alternative.

Perhaps, but surely we can come to some sort of compromise. Perhaps exempting them from sales taxes when they're used for educational purposes (day care organizations, schools, colleges, etc) similar to the way that food is exempted from sales taxes in certain states if they're bought for businesses.

[Alexander Hamilton]

My point is that if you're going to exempt something from sales taxes, it has to be because it's a special or important product, or it's disproportionately consumed by a certain group of people. There's no such exceptions for books, which makes the sales tax exemption rather out of place and pointless.

I would consider books an educational material, possibly all publications could be. Therefore, I consider that a special item to be exempt. You may disagree but as it stands, I'd like to see that clause removed, or work together to find an alternative.

Perhaps, but surely we can come to some sort of compromise. Perhaps exempting them from sales taxes when they're used for educational purposes (day care organizations, schools, colleges, etc) similar to the way that food is exempted from sales taxes in certain states if they're bought for businesses.

I would be open to considering that. I would like to see what others have to offer, MaxQue has also stated his dissatisfaction with the clause. I wish there were some way to incorporate children's books into it because I really want to see more kid's reading and owning books but that seems difficult to categorize and is likely more trouble than it's worth.

[Ebowed]

Taxes on cigarettes I find helpful to the poor in that they discourage consumption, therefore an incentive for quitting

This is one of those really good ideas that has never been proven not to work.

[Alexander Hamilton]

Taxes on cigarettes I find helpful to the poor in that they discourage consumption, therefore an incentive for quitting

This is one of those really good ideas that has never been proven not to work.

To be honest, it doesn't matter to me. It has short term benefits of increased revenue witht he long term aim of reduction. We have other means of revenues, excise taxes are a convenient way to kill two birds with one stone over time. Whether they are effective in reducing consumption could probably be debated, but the potential is worth it. Regardless, the clause of removing the book tax ban is not acceptable to me.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Reintroduced with changes, since we have a new Governor now! Yay!

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[MaxQue]

Still not acceptable.

[Ebowed]

Indeed, I motion to strike sections 3 & 4.

[Marokai Backbeat]

There is absolutely no reason to not have a sales tax on books. None

Remove them if you want, but don't expect my vote on it.

[Ebowed]

We could look at lifting the exemption for religious organizations as a way of raising revenue instead.

Sales taxes are regressive, and while I don't mind some of the sales taxes we have on the books, I don't think expanding them is pertinent.

[Marokai Backbeat]

We could look at lifting the exemption for religious organizations as a way of raising revenue instead.

Sales taxes are regressive, and while I don't mind some of the sales taxes we have on the books, I don't think expanding them is pertinent.

That's an interesting idea for replacing the book sales tax, although I still need no reason to keep it eliminated. You may as well eliminate the sales tax on CDs, video games, and comics. But in any case, I'm not sure how exactly we'd write that..

[Purple State]

We could look at lifting the exemption for religious organizations as a way of raising revenue instead.

Sales taxes are regressive, and while I don't mind some of the sales taxes we have on the books, I don't think expanding them is pertinent.

That's an interesting idea for replacing the book sales tax, although I still need no reason to keep it eliminated. You may as well eliminate the sales tax on CDs, video games, and comics. But in any case, I'm not sure how exactly we'd write that..

If you wanted a non-regressive system, you could remove silly sales taxes and put in place a VAT tax on luxury goods.

[Meeker]

In my experience books are mostly purchases of the wealthier amongst us. I've never heard of books being described as an item that particularly affects the lower class, nor have I ever really been under the impression that the purchase of books is an essential necessity. People can go to a library if they don't like that tax.

I guess I just don't get the motivation behind it.

[bgwah]

Bill Frist Act (technically bill still I suppose)
1) All testing on non-human vertebrate animals is hereby banned in the Pacific Region.
2) Violation of this ban shall result in up to five years in prison and up to one million dollars in fines.

X Bgwah

[Alexander Hamilton]

Bill Frist Act
1) All testing on non-human vertebrate animals is hereby banned in the Pacific Region.
2) Violation of this ban shall result in up to five years in prison and up to one million dollars in fines.

X Bgwah

LOL!

[Marokai Backbeat]

Bill Frist Act
1) All testing on non-human vertebrate animals is hereby banned in the Pacific Region.
2) Violation of this ban shall result in up to five years in prison and up to one million dollars in fines.

X Bgwah

x Marokai Blue

[Alcon]

Bill Frist Act (technically bill still I suppose)
1) All testing on non-human vertebrate animals is hereby banned in the Pacific Region.
2) Violation of this ban shall result in up to five years in prison and up to one million dollars in fines.

X Bgwah

x Alcon, snarky name aside

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I'm not really posting as my fantasy self here...

In my experience books are mostly purchases of the wealthier amongst us.

This situation will not improve if you artificially increase their price.

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That's quite an elitist (no, I mean actually elitist, not "elitist" in the sense it's often used in American political discourse post-1968 or so) statement, though you probably don't realise it. But read it again, and out of context, and you might.

The point is that books and reading ought not be restricted to certain social classes, that literacy is (or at least ought to be) a gateway to self-education and self-improvement and that a tax on books is (as the campaign against the Thatcher government's attempt to remove books from 0% VAT put it) a "tax on knowledge". Of course if you go even further back - one of the traditional calling-cards of a certain sort of reactionary regime was a tax on books and newspapers (guess why).

Making the situation even worse than it is (I remember reading an estimate on how many Americans read books on a regular basis and being pretty shocked) in order to fight the deficit is an unusual action for a liberal-ish government to take.

Besides, you'd get more money from taxing luxury goods.

[Alexander Hamilton]

I'm not really posting as my fantasy self here...

In my experience books are mostly purchases of the wealthier amongst us.

This situation will not improve if you artificially increase their price.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

That's quite an elitist (no, I mean actually elitist, not "elitist" in the sense it's often used in American political discourse post-1968 or so) statement, though you probably don't realise it. But read it again, and out of context, and you might.

The point is that books and reading ought not be restricted to certain social classes, that literacy is (or at least ought to be) a gateway to self-education and self-improvement and that a tax on books is (as the campaign against the Thatcher government's attempt to remove books from 0% VAT put it) a "tax on knowledge". Of course if you go even further back - one of the traditional calling-cards of a certain sort of reactionary regime was a tax on books and newspapers (guess why).

Making the situation even worse than it is (I remember reading an estimate on how many Americans read books on a regular basis and being pretty shocked) in order to fight the deficit is an unusual action for a liberal-ish government to take.

Besides, you'd get more money from taxing luxury goods.

I atually agree with everything you said, and it's something I fought for.

[Marokai Backbeat]

How could a tax on luxury goods be written?

[Alexander Hamilton]

How could a tax on luxury goods be written?

Raising income taxes for the rich.

[tmthforu94]

Bill Frist Act (technically bill still I suppose)
1) All testing on non-human vertebrate animals is hereby banned in the Pacific Region.
2) Violation of this ban shall result in up to five years in prison and up to one million dollars in fines.

X Bgwah

Brilliant.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

How could a tax on luxury goods be written?

Define what "luxury goods" are, work out an appropriate rate, and tax them.

[Meeker]

This situation will not improve if you artificially increase their price.

My point was that this tax increase would mostly affect the rich amongst us - I wasn't making a commentary on the market affect of having such a tax.

However, since you brought it up, it's modifying the price by at best a few cents. A price difference like that is not why the poor don't read books (or why those who already read them won't). And amongst that small portion of the population that reads books regularly and would stop buying books (as such a group hypothetically exists when talking about a tax increase in this manner), they can always go to a library.

My bottom line is that if we want the lower class to start reading more there are about a dozen better solutions I can think of while all the while collecting this tax which comes, mostly, from the wealthy.

That's quite an elitist (no, I mean actually elitist, not "elitist" in the sense it's often used in American political discourse post-1968 or so) statement, though you probably don't realise it. But read it again, and out of context, and you might.

Again, my point was only that the lower class doesn't purchase books at a higher rate than other classes do. It's the truth whether you want to admit it or not.

The point is that books and reading ought not be restricted to certain social classes, that literacy is (or at least ought to be) a gateway to self-education and self-improvement and that a tax on books is (as the campaign against the Thatcher government's attempt to remove books from 0% VAT put it) a "tax on knowledge". Of course if you go even further back - one of the traditional calling-cards of a certain sort of reactionary regime was a tax on books and newspapers (guess why).

Making the situation even worse than it is (I remember reading an estimate on how many Americans read books on a regular basis and being pretty shocked) in order to fight the deficit is an unusual action for a liberal-ish government to take.

Again, as I said earlier, if our goal is to get the lower class reading more books - or educate them more over all - this isn't the best solution. Sure it will help to some extent, but there's also other benefits to imposing the tax that outweigh those benefits to the lower class. If we're really interested in improving reading rates amongst the lower class we should look at other types of programs.

And we're not denying anyone access to a book. They need only go to a library and check one out (which, actually, makes far more sense than buying a book in the first place in my opinion).

And to apply your argument as a whole even further, there are a lot of products that are socially beneficial to the poor besides books that we should, under this theory, not taxed.

I understand and generally sympathize with the point you're making, but ultimately we have to tax something in order to collect revenue and in my opinion that tax base should include books. I can see the benefits of not doing it as you've articulated; I'm just not convinced the loss of revenue (or lack of increase in this case) is worth it.