Amendment 16

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration
____________________________________________________________

This amendment of the Constitution gave the government the power to tax citizens and businesses.

____________________________________________________________

11/19/2009




Thoughts:

I can see why in some cases income tax is needed. I do think everyone should help pay for certain things like city roads, and city schools because we all benefit from this. But I think the government takes the power to tax too far. Not everyone agrees on the war in Iraq just like they didn't agree with WWII like this video is talking about. I do not believe that the American money should be spent on the war today because the war on Iraq seems pointless to me.
____________________________________________________________

11/19/2009

Friday, March 20, 2009

Increase in cigarette tax packs punch

Kansas City Business Journal - by Mike Sherry Staff Writer

Luci Messina doesn’t know what to think about the 62-cent increase in the federal cigarette tax that takes effect April 1.

The owner of Time Out Deli & Market in downtown Kansas City, Messina already is confronting a recent increase of 70 cents a pack for Philip Morris USA Inc. products.

If manufacturers add the tax to their recent increases, she’s looking at a roughly 34 percent boost in the price she pays for the cigarettes from her supplier. She said she hopes that isn’t the case but that she isn’t sure.

“That’s why everybody is a little bit confused at this point,” Messina said.

Cigarette sales account for about 15 percent of her business, and she anticipates a decrease in business because of the higher prices, she said. She’s not too worried, though.

“The heavy-duty smokers will pay no matter what,” Messina said.

The increase in the federal cigarette tax from 39 cents a pack to $1.01 a pack is a result of the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act, enacted Feb. 4. The tax increase is to pay for an expansion of health care benefits for low-income children.

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. in Winston-Salem, N.C., increased its wholesale price by as much as 44 cents a pack as of March 16, spokesman David Howard said.

He said the new price incorporates the additional federal tax. The company also has reduced its costs by decreasing some discounts offered to retailers.

R.J. Reynolds increased prices a couple of weeks early, Howard said, to give customers a chance to adjust their prices in advance of the new tax.

He said retailers and wholesalers might want to generate additional revenue to cover the “floor tax” the government will levy on existing stocks as of March 31, which basically applies the tax increase to existing inventory.

According to the National Association for Convenience and Petroleum Retailing in Alexandria, Va., Messina is not alone in her uncertainty about the increase. Some of the main questions involve the floor tax, said Chris Tampio, an association lobbyist.

Cigarettes account for a third of the sales generated inside convenience stores, according to the association.

The percentage is lower for QuikTrip Corp., which has 74 stores in the Kansas City area, but spokesman Mike Thornbrugh declined to specify how big a chunk it is of the company’s sales.

For several years, the company, based in Tulsa, Okla., has been diversifying to depend less on cigarette sales.

Thornbrugh said the impending tax increase will a have more dramatic effect on QuikTrips and other convenience stores on the Kansas side of the state line as customers become even more price-conscious.

Kansas has a state cigarette tax of 79 cents a pack, and Missouri’s is 17 cents.

“If you’re on the Kansas side,” Thornbrugh said, “your stores are going to get killed. (Customers) are just going to go across to Missouri to make their purchase. That one we know will happen immediately.”

Dr. Rex Archer said he doesn’t see the increase as anti-business at all.

The director of the Kansas City Health Department, Archer said that most companies should be happy about the prospect of a healthier work force — and lower health insurance costs — that would result if the higher prices prompt people to kick the habit.

“For 95 percent of the businesses out there,” Archer said, “this is great.”

Thoughts:

Again I think the government takes the power of taking too far. Why should someone who has a bad habit have to pay so much in taxes? How is this right? Although I am not a smoker myself, I do not think the government should be able to tax tobacco so heavily. The people who smoke are not going to quit smoking, it will just make it harder and harder for them to get by and buy other things they need on a daily bases. This effects me personally as both my mother and father smokes. Because of the increase on taxes we are having to cut back in other areas like grocery's and other personal needs.
____________________________________________________________