Congratulations OR-tards, you’ve passed two new tax measures in one special election!  That’s something of a record here in Oregon as traditionally we’ve been vehemently anti-tax.

I wish I could say that I was surprised by the fact the tax measures passed, but with the pro-tax camp spending nearly 7 million dollars on advertising (almost half-again as much as the other side) it wasn’t much in doubt.  They know the bulk of the sheeple believe what they see on TV, and this election proves it.

I want to preface this rant by saying that my personal tax will not be affected by measure 66 and my business is  unlikely to be greatly affected by 67.  Every business will pay more in taxes, but at the current piss-poor economy level that it has been that won’t be but a few hundred dollars to my company.

The two measures, for my out-of-state friends, were 66 & 67, one to tax individuals making $100k or more and one to tax business making $500k or more.  There were three main cries in the pro-tax camp.  The one heard most often was “let’s make business pay their fair share.”  They keep using that word, fair, I don’t think it means what they think.

There are a lot of definitions for the word fair,  but I think the one they were implying is “without irregularity or unevenness.”  How is it fair to charge one business more than another?  Taxes, by their very design are inherently unfair.  Fair would be everyone paying a flat percentage regardless of how much they made.  Currently, people that make more money pay a higher percentage.  The more you make, the higher that percentage is.  Not because it is just or right or even fair, but just because they made more money and the government wants a bigger cut.

They’re changing the tax for $500k and above to be off of gross.  Even if your business is losing money you’ll be paying more tax.  Assuming you actually made money, any money that a company may have had left-over that they used to spend on year-end bonuses, buying new equipment, hiring a new employee etc. will now be saved to be sent to the government.  And if you didn’t have any money left over, or lost money?  It don’t matter now, they raised the minimum tax too.  So, in addition to a contents tax, property tax (even if you’re renting some of your rent is undoubtedly going to property tax), payroll tax, unemployment tax, and workers compensation insurance (which is mandatory in OR;  therefore a tax) we’re now paying increased business income tax.  Oh, and by the way, this new tax is retroactive to Jan. 1, 2009 so I hope every business saved a little extra to pay the increased taxes.  Our fair share indeed.

The second most popular cry I heard was it will help to save our school funding.  “Vote yes to save our schools!”  I checked the measures (feel free to read the link above if you don’t believe me)  but there is nothing in them specifically to help school funding.  Oh, the TV and print ads would have you believe that voting yes will give a teacher to every student and insure that every kid is a Rhodes Scholar; but the fact is the money raised by the tax just goes into the general fund for the legislature to piss away as they see fit.  There is no verbage whatsoever, in either measure, that says “X% of this tax will be set aside for school funding.”

The third, and personally most distubing mantra I  heard was basically, “this tax only affects people that make $250,000 dollars or more so you should vote for it because the majority of taxpayers will be unaffected by it.”   What a wonderful attitude that is.  Not to be overly dramatic here, but this type of  it-doesn’t-affect-me-so-why-should-I-care attitude is exactly what is wrong this this country.  And to have the pro-tax camp employ it in their ads strikes me as disingenuous at best,  criminally malfeasant at worst.  My wife and I don’t make $250k a year, not anywhere near that neighborhood,  hell, not anywhere near that county.  But, I’m still just as pissed off as if we did.  I may not be making that much money now, but I work hard every day in the hopes that someday, I just might be making that kind of money. 

Our state government has increased its spending, year after year, for the last decade.  I wish I could have done that.  Fact is, with the economy downturn we’ve had to lay off employees and take a pay cut ourselves in order to keep our business viable.  And now they’ve come to take more money. 

Generally, the people that make the kind of money that these measures target make that kind of money because they are not stupid.  Those that can afford move to another state, will.  Those that can’t afford to move will either increase fees to offset the tax increase or will cut hours/services to make sure they don’t hit the new cap.  Most of the really “big” businesses in this state already have some type of state/county tax break in place that they got in return for coming into the state in the first place so they are likely to be unaffected by the tax anyway.

People just don’t seem to understand taxes.   You ask most middle-class workers how much tax they paid last year and they’re likely to say “Oh, I didn’t have to pay I got a refund!”  Or they may say “Oh, I only owed a couple hundred.”  That is the root of the misunderstanding, I think.  You got a refund because you paid too much.   That money you got back from the government; that’s your money.  The government kept it for you all year and in return gave you nothing for letting them hang on to it.   I can speak with great authority that if you try doing that with the government’s money they’ll want interest and penalties and whole host of other malfunctions in addition to whatever money you held on to for them.

Do me a favor, will ya?  The next time someone asks you how much tax you paid, look at box number 46 on your 1040 and give them that number.