Taxation
On the last weekday of 2011, David Klepper of the Associated Press writes what could be the least surprising news story of the year (h/t WPRO News)…As he prepares for his second year in office, Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee is looking for ways to spur the state’s frail economy, rescue its struggling cities and…
It’s instructive to watch the pieces that fall away when financial difficulties force changes in public policy, because they reveal glimpses of the scam inside. The latest (that I’ve noticed) comes with the car tax controversy: The state Vehicle Value Commission dropped the value of some older cars during a brief meeting Tuesday, but did…
I’ve placed the 5.5% privatization tax in the context of the General Assembly’s history of opposing such money-saving measures and pondered the language of the newly minted statute. My concern, in brief, is that there really isn’t anything limiting the application of the 5.5% “assessment” to state privatization. The only limit mentioned is to the…
Who says? Why, the Director of the Department of Administration, Mr. Richard Licht, though he didn’t actually use the words “gouge” or even “taxpayer”. (Ah, the joy of euphemisms). As Patrick noted, one of the few last minute amendments to the good-start-on-but-by-no means-comprehensive pension reform bill that survived a floor vote was a 5.5% tax…
Where does the government get its money to buy stuff? Do you know? It seems most people don’t. They just seem to think it’s free money or they’ll get it from business or industry. Just like this article about Obama’s recent idea to help the Christmas tree industry by taxing it fifteen cents a tree…
Exclusively, it appears, courtesy WPRO. Christopher Cardarelli earned $77,000 as a firefighter last year and collected a $37,000 pension as a retired police captain but now he says he is paying too much for health benefits. … Cardarelli asserts that the city must reimburse him the $17 dollars a week he has been paying toward…
In September, Rhode Island State Democratic Chairman Edwin Pacheco staked his party to an aggressive stand against adding a balanced budget amendment to the United States Constitution, characterizing such an amendment in an official press release as “extreme economic policy”. But support for Federal spending-with-no-ending has not always been the singularly dominant position amongst Rhode…
Warwick Car Tax Revolt leader Rob Cote has done a great service to the citizens of Warwick and the state by keeping the heat on our elected officials regarding the car tax. Further to that end, he decided to drop in on the annual Car Tax Evaluation Committee meeting, buried somewhere in the State House…
Fresh from the taping of this week’s Newsmakers program for WPRI-TV (CBS 12), host Tim White tweets… Chafee says he may resurrect his controversial sales tax plan next year. Newsmakers (with myself, Ted Nesi and Ian Donnis) will be online soon.
It’s always appropriate to call for a greater sense of shame among Rhode Island’s politicians, but Ed Achorn was a little too specific in his column, last week: The politicians of Rhode Island would be ashamed of themselves, had they not lost the capacity for feeling shame long ago. Their determination to balance their enormous…