March 11, 2011
New Taxables
Ted Nesi has put up a list of newly-taxed items being proposed by Governor Chafee. I've copied it after the jump. As a commenter to Ted noted:
...the fact Rhode Island has so many sales tax exemptions is interesting in and of itself. The state has a total of 82 exemptions, 20 of which have been added over just the past 19 years, according to the Chafee administration.Special deals? Naw.
I. Goods and servies to be newly taxed at 6%* Prewritten computer software delivered electronically
* Corrective eyeglasses and contact lenses
* Nonprescription drugs including medical marijuana
* Newspapers
* Insurance proceeds from destroyed or stolen passenger car as trade-in allowance
* Property or supplies used in the processing or preparation of floral products and arrangements
* Garbage and trash collection including certain waste management and remediation services
* Taxicabs and other road transportation services
* Scenic and sightseeing transportation and support activities and package tours
* Couriers and messengers
* Moving, storage, including warehousing, and freight services
* Photo studios including photographic and portrait photography services
* Pet services except veterinary services including testing laboratories
* Data processing, hosting, and related services
* Facilities support services
* Business support services
* Investigation and security services including locksmiths
* Services to building and dwellings including domestic services, extermination and pest controls services, landscaping services and other support services from commercial providers
Employment agency services
* Personal care services including hairdressing salons and personal grooming establishments, diet and weight reducing centers and other personal services
* Laundry and dry cleaning services
* Recreation and Entertainment to be Subjected to Sales and Use Tax
* Membership clubs and participant sports centers including bowling centers but excluding aircraft rental and leasing without pilots and marinas and boat storage
* Amusement parks, campgrounds, and related recreational services including fitness and recreational sports centers but excluding sales by elementary and secondary schools, tuitions and fees paid to fine arts schools and promoters of performing arts, sports and similar events
* Motion picture theaters including those of post secondary educational institutions
* Live entertainment excluding sports and promoters of performing arts, sports and similar events and independent artists, writers, and performers
* Spectator sports except elementary and secondary schools and promoters of performing arts, sports and similar events
* Museums, historical sites, zoos, parks, art galleries and libraries
* Motor vehicle including car washes
* Audio-visual, photographic and information processing equipment
* Electronic and precision equipment
* Commercial and industrial equipment except for manufacturers
* Recreational and sports equipment except for boats
* Furniture, furnishings, and floor coverings
* Household appliances
* Clothing and footwear repair, rental and alterations
* Watch, clock and jewelry repair
* Professional association dues except for alumni associations, parent-teacher organizations, booster clubs, scouting organizations, veterans membership organizations, political organizations, athletic associations, regulatory or administrative associations, property owners’ associations, condominium and homeowners’ associations, tenant associations, and cooperative owners’ associationsII. Goods and services to be newly taxed at 1%
* Agricultural products for human consumption
* Air and water pollution control facilities
* Aircraft, including aircraft rental and leasing without pilots, and aircraft parts
* Banks and Regulated Investment Companies interstate toll-free calls
* Boats or vessels brought in exclusively for winter storage, maintenance, repair or sale
* Boats or vessels generally
* Boats to nonresidents
* Building materials used to rebuild after a disaster
* Casual sales
* Clothing and footwear
* Coffins, caskets and burial garments
* Coins
* Commercial fishing vessels in excess of five net tons
* Commercial vessels of more than 50 tons burden
* Compressed air
* Containers
* Dietary supplements
* Educational institutions rental charges
* Electricity, steam and thermal energy from the Rhode Island Economic Development Corp.
* Equipment for research and development
* Farm equipment
* Farm structure construction materials
* Flags
* Heating fuels used in the heating of homes and residential premises
* Horse food products
* Jewelry display product
* Manufacturers’ machinery and equipment
* Precious metal bullion
* Promotional and product literature of boat manufacturers
* Purchases used for manufacturing purposes
* Renewable energy products
* Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation project status designees
* Rhode Island Industrial Facilities Corporation Lessees
* Sales by writers, composers and artists
* Sales in municipal economic development zones
* Sales to charitable, educational or religious organizations
* Sales of trailers ordinarily used for residential purposes
* Supplies used in on-site hazardous waste recycling, reuse or treatment
* Textbooks
* Total loss or destruction of a motor vehicle within 120 days of tax payment
* Trade-in value of boats and private passenger automobiles
* Transfers or sales made to immediate family members
* Transfers or sales related to a business dissolution or partial liquidation
* Water for residential use
Chafee: FIRST CUT SPENDING! When you have cut once, cut again, and then again. Fire public employees, these state departments are full of deadwood. Only when you have cut spending to the bone should you start adding new taxes.
As to the new "taxables", how much could you raise if you added recreational boats, and marina services, including slip fees, to the 6% category? He is catering to his public union cronies by adding taxes first, and catering to his fellow wealthy ne'er-do-wells with his protectionism of the recreational boating crowd. If that new $200,000 boat has a $12,000 sales tax, the buyer is still going to buy it. If he buys it somewhere else, impose a 6% use tax in RI. And while you're at it, every Town and City should start including boats in the property taxes. We all pay taxes on our cars, which we need to get to work, but my neighbor with the $300,000 RV or boat doesn't pay a dime on that luxury? He's using the roads (RV) and the state waters - why are we letting that money walk away?
Treating recreational boats and boating the same as commercial fishing vessels, taxing manufacturing equipment, taxing farm equipment and farm raised food is more evidence that Chafee is anti-business.When can the recall begin?
Posted by: riborn at March 11, 2011 2:01 PMChafee can't impose anything on his own.
Let's remember who bcome his handmaidens.
People know full well that a vote for Democrats is a vote for ever increasingly lavish monies to government "workers" and welfare leeches, coupled with exponentially higher state and local taxes.
People keep voting Democrat.
We deserve EVERYTHING we get.
Interesting that you see the need to cut spending, then in almost the same breath advocate raising the tax on boats to 6%. Buyers do indeed have a choice of where to buy their boats and imposing a use tax would necessarily mean that you allow boats from different locations some time they can visit without paying the tax. Our season here is pretty short. So a savvy boat owner will visit with his boat for a few weeks then move it to the next state, 5 miles away. Rhode Island has plenty of competitors in New England. Right now we don't charge any sales or use taxes on boats. As a direct consequence of that policy, the marine industry is one of the few that is thriving in this silly state. The jobs are good and pay well. Even the proposed 1% tax on services is going to cost jobs. Raise it to 6% and there won't be any marine industry. Or those jobs.
Just so you know, people who own boats are not all rich. Some (like me) are guys who work three jobs just to stay afloat(so to speak), and sailing is what makes it all worthwhile.
My point is that if any new sales taxes are to be imposed, certain long protected exemptions such as pleasure boats need to go first. I agree that many regular-joes own pleasure boats and sacrifice to have them, but a pleasure boat is truly not a necessity, like the food, home heating fuel and prescription medicine that people are working three jobs to afford. There are many businesses in RI that do not have the protection of sales tax examption - bought a car lately? A pleasure boat is a luxury, whether it's a 12 foot sunfish or a 36 foot chris craft corsair.
Before the GA considers sales tax on the very necessaries of life (and AFTER they have cut, cut and cut spending again), let's pay the sales taxes on our toys.
Posted by: riborn at March 12, 2011 7:29 PMFYI: The "Andrew" 2 comments above is not the Andrew who is the contributor to the bog
Posted by: Andrew at March 12, 2011 7:57 PMSorry for the confusion. I'll post as Andy from now on.
My point is that boats are mobile. The rich people you want to target will simply take their boats and all the money they spend on repairs and maintenance (I know it's a LOT, I was a yacht captain once) and go somewhere else.
RI has a thriving marine industry for the very reason that we've had a tax-friendly policy toward boats here.
Hmmmm maybe we should extrapolate that to all businesses and industries and see what happens?