Comments on: About that sales tax

By: len raphael

len raphael — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 04:14:14 +0000

V, your sarcastic comment about oakland retraining ex car salespeople. selling cars has a lot in common with selling solar power systems. shouldn’t take our usual 100k cost per trainee to show results.

trainiing them to sell dope and dope products? maybe the parts people.

mechanics. without some more light industry here, that’ll be tough.

By: len raphael

len raphael — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 04:10:17 +0000

reread the sales tax proposal. sooner than later we’ll have to raise sales taxes and parcel taxes no matter how drastic we’ll be able to cut outlays.
fed and state cuts, likely continuing declines in real estate tax revenue etc.

raising sales taxes to a historic high before a bunch of neighboring areas raise their rates, is the same mistake we made with parking meters.

we don’t want to get tagged as the first major city in California to have a 10% sales tax. There will be other cities doing it, wait a year.

By: Steve Lowe

Steve Lowe — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 01:01:56 +0000

No matter how much we tax booze and ciggies, folks keep buying it, and so it will be with marijuana when it, too, is finally and fully legalized. So let’s get to it, not only for the revenue but for all the savings we get by cutting out the CAMP expenses and also (my personal favorite) the expense of all the rangers it takes to keep Californians out of our parks because, ostensibly, we can no longer justify the expense of keeping them open; so, therefore, the only people in the parks are the marijuana growers who (a) get as much land as they need for free, and (b) start as many or more fires per year as did the bad and/or inadvertent campers of old.

As fire season approaches, think about your gov’t inaction in action – and all the rangers out there, bored as hell and taking a secret puff now and then to relieve the monotony.

And the Russkies thought they had a chance of taking over someday!

By: Sophie

Sophie — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 17:19:33 +0000

I read your website every week, its great and got lots of information to take in and lots of interesting articles.

By: Chris Kidd

Chris Kidd — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 16:35:11 +0000

Fun with broadly-vague macro economic theory! Just cut and paste.

By: Jonathan C. Breault

Jonathan C. Breault — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 00:19:36 +0000

Nothing occurs without context and this is true with Oakland’s proposal to increase the sales tax. The best way to stimulate economic growth is to tax consumption and reward savings and investment. Given that we tax savings and investment thus discouraging this important activity compounding the problem with additional consumption tax stifles growth and literally kills businesses. Oakland can ill afford to discourage business formation and expansion but it never seems reluctant to try just that. Apparently the politicians around here are not aware of the economic truism which is that higher taxes mean lower receipts because a greater portion of the economic pie becomes stagnant and is not dynamic which is the propellant that causes growth. More money taken out of the private economy by government means less economic activity which means fewer businesses succeeding employing fewer people who are thus less able to consume and grown the economy. Oakland has just about taxed itself to death. Oakland is not quite terminally ill but if the political establishment has much to do with it Oakland is the next Vallejo.

By: californio

californio — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 16:24:53 +0000

Rebecca, V tells us you voted Yes on the TUT. I’d be interested in hearing your reasoning behind the vote. Are there really no alternatives to new taxes? I’m not intimately familiar with the budget details but would like very much to know how you thought it through.

By: V Smoothe

V Smoothe — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 08:10:45 +0000

I will not get to writing a post about tonight’s meeting until Thursday, but just FYI, Council did not vote to put the TUT on the ballot (required 6 votes, De La Fuente, Brunner, and Brooks said no, Larry Reid abstained, Kernighan, Nadel, Quan, and Kaplan said yes). They voted unanimously for the marijuana dispensary tax at 18%. They decided to delay consideration of the parks parcel tax until the fall.

They did nothing on armed security – a motion to hire the armed security (rather than using the money to pay for OPD overtime) tied, and the Mayor will have the opportunity to break the tie at the next meeting.

By: Ralph

Ralph — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 06:03:59 +0000

thank god for hurdles…i really like IDLF, he seems to be the only one with any courage and he seems to understand the people’s frustration with council. How can council in good conscious as the residents to pay higher taxes when council is not examining how to provide more with less and council recently gave away $2MM.

By: len raphael

len raphael — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 04:11:43 +0000

the distinction between sales and use tax probably is no never mind in this situation. consider them as just sales tax.

use tax compliance by mid to larger businesses is high because it is enforced by a fairly high rate of audits of businesses holding sales tax permits. (most big businessess do, of small businesses, strictly service businesses do not).

Federal government agencies are not subject to sales or use but most non-profits, state and local agencies are subject to use tax. (interesting to think the city is taxing itself?)

so this new use tax would be very collectible from vehicle purchasers, businesses and non profits that have sales tax permits, plus poor people who don’t do their big ticket shopping on the net or Walnut Creek.