Why Does The Taxing Authority Charge Me Tax On That?

The answer to the question posed in the title of this posting is, “Because they are the Taxing Authority and they can”.

In many respects taxation is only limited by our various governmental agencies’ ability to think of something to tax. I mentioned in a blog posting once before that Medieval European Taxing Authorities once levied a tax on the Windows in their constituent’s homes. The people “rebelled” and started bricking up their windows. I don’t know this for a fact but I do wonder if Ye Ole Medieval Taxing Authority started taxing bricks.

A Sales Tax is...

A tax imposed by the government at the point of sale on retail goods and services.

Or is it?

Enter from stage left The State of California. Why is California special? That’s because these people really know how to tax. They also know how to spend more than they tax. In their small minds this means they need to impose more taxes because they must not have taxed enough in the first place. A good example is the California Cell Phone.

We are all familiar with phone companies selling the actual phones themselves for a reduced price to get customers to sign with them for cell phone service. The phones themselves are, many times, greatly reduced in price. The Californian Minion then pays his 8.25% Sales Tax on the greatly reduced price...Or does he?

There is a bureaucrat in California that got a big bonus because he came up with the idea of charging the sales tax on the real value. In California, if you pay $30 for a $400 phone, you pay tax on $400 ($33) not on $30 ($4.75). That’s almost 7 times more money into California’s Coffers.

Does California even bother to “justify” this tax levy? Actually it does. Their explanation is that the phone company gives this reduced price because they recoup the real value of the phone by requiring the buyer to sign a long term contract. The California Taxing Authority says it is only getting it’s just due (whatever that means).

Want to analyze this “justification” with me for a bit? Think about it. The State of California also charges a Sales Tax on Each Monthly Payment made by the minion. That means California gets it’s just due 8.25% sales tax twice.

Ever wonder why California’s Minions don’t rebel? The reason is they are afraid to make their Taxing Authority mad at them. If they get mad at them, they might raise their taxes or, even worse, impose a Rebellion Tax.

Would I kid u?

Technorati Tags: Taxes,Cell Phones,California

Two Prior Postings Because It Is Silly Season Again

What do I mean about “Silly Season”? That’s the Presidential Election Cycle, of course...

First...

Exit Polling

Yea, I understand how they do it but what I don't understand is how they get to, where they get to once they are done doing it.

I could understand...

• 55% say they voted for this guy.
• 45% say they voted for that guy.

It is the specific, exacting and minute detail that I don't understand...

• 42% of the white voters, who went to two years of college, before going on to be left-handed carpenters, voted for this guy.
• 63% of fallen-away Catholics, who have been married three times, where the first and third marriages were to the same person, voted for that guy.
• 54% of those who voted in the 1992 election, but did not vote in the 1996, nor the 2000 election, but returned to the voting booth in the 2004 and, now, voted in this 2008 election, voted for this guy.

Oh well, so much for Secret Balloting.

Would I kid u?

------------------------

Second:

My Fondest Wish

There is no way to fully unite a country as large as the United States but my fondest wish would be that all of us refuse to answer any questions from any political pollster about anything political. This would drive the politicians absolutely nuts. Think of the positive results that would come out of an I-Ain't-Gonna-Tell-You-Anything America...

• It would drive the politicians absolutely nuts.
• It would prevent politicians from tweaking their latest campaign pitch to address how the public reacted to their prior campaign pitch.
• They would be forced to tell us what they really plan to do when elected, instead of telling us what they think we want them to do when elected.
• It would drive the politicians absolutely nuts.
• They would be forced to think out their positions and stick with them and hope for the best.
• It would put every polling company out of business. Since they are only interested in what's best for America (yea, right), they would then be free to join the Peace Corps (if such a thing still exists).
• It would drive the politicians absolutely nuts.

One final tirade ... The silliest one is when we are told the results of a poll done by a Democratic or a Republican Pollster. It is strange how the "results" always come out favoring their party's positions. I guess I could be made to believe that the poll did come out in favor of their party's positions but, you will never get me to believe, that any poll that did not favor their party's positions was just not published at all. It's sort of like them saying, "We are going to keep polling the American People until the American People get it right."

Would I kid u?

Our Poor President

Something has to be done about Presidential Campaigning on the Good Ole USofA. It has really gotten out of hand...

“No rest for the campaign weary: Obama is traveling about 5,300 miles today with attempts to win over voters in Iowa, Colorado, a stop in California to talk to Jay Leno, then a stop in Las Vegas before an overnight trip to Florida.”

It’s those darn Battleground States. Something ought to be done. The Smartfella has a recommendation and he just does not understand how anyone could find fault with his plan.

Battleground States are too far apart! This is causing the candidates to frantically race from one to the other, wasting jet fuel and getting greyer by the minute. Here are the Battleground States...

Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Colorado & Nevada

Some of you have already discerned from reading my past blog postings that I am going to propose that the Battleground States move closer to each other. Those that came to this conclusion disappoint me. That would be silly. My recommendation is much more logical.

Up in New England there are lots of smaller states all bunched close together. Whoever is in charge of designating Battleground States ought to name these sates Battleground States. The candidates could put on their wind breakers and go campaigning up that a way.

They would be able to flit around to many states each day, save a lot of our precious energy and could probably do their flitting in shuttle busses borrowed from Concord Municipal Airport.

Sometimes I amaze myself.

Don’t ask me how Jay Leno got into the President’s Battleground Frenzied Dash. California is not a Battleground State. I guess it’s because they are too busy raising taxes on themselves, demonstrating against something or other, surfing and watching fellow Californians move out of the state to pay any attention to national politics.

I may not know how Jay Leno got a visit from the president but, one thing I do know, David Letterman is mad as hell.

Would I kid u?

If Frank Sinatra Would Be Starting Out Today, He Would Be Banned From Altoona and All Places In Between

What a Great Performer! What a Great Singer!

The above praise for Frank Sinatra is acknowledged by almost everyone who ever saw him perform or certainly who ever heard him sing. I am here to contend that, if Frank Sinatra was trying to make it in the world of modern entertainment, he would be protested, boycotted and his career would be over before it began. 

Have I got you interested? Have I got you confused? If you do not see what I am getting at, again you disappoint me. I could just allow you to wallow in your ignorance but that would be cruel and the Smartfella is never cruel.

It’s the lyrics of his songs! In his day his lyrics were catchy, nifty and cool. Today they are not acceptable because they would not be Politically Correct...

Ø The Lady is a Tramp
Need I saw more? This song alone would have allowed us to stick a fork in him because he would have been done!

Ø One for My Baby and One More for the Road
Can’t you just see that scathing headline?... “Skinny newcomer with ambitions to be the next Big Thing was run out of town last night for advocating Drinking and Driving!”

Ø My Mama done told me.
When I was in knee pants.
My Mama done told me, son.
A woman’s a two face.
A worrisome thing who’ll leave you to sing the blues in the night.
What was he thinking? “A woman’s a two face!?” That would never be acceptable today!

Regarding Frank Sinatra’s The Lady is a Tramp lyric... Ole Blue Eyes was known as a tough guy. He took no guff from anyone. Even ole blue eyes, tough guy, no guff Sinatra did concede that he could not fight this battle in his later years. He changed this lyric to The Lady is a Champ. J

Sinatra is gone but all is not lost because we do have Lady Gaga. That is enough of an entertainer for any of us... Or is it?

Would I kid u?

NOTE: Don’t blame me… BlogSpot (Google) is responsible for those ads at the bottom of my Foolishness.

Flag Football Anyone?

As a public service to my dear readers I am stating at the beginning of this Foolishness...Or Is It ... This Is About Football.

If you have no interest in anything that bounces, especially a football, stop reading immediately and go do something really useful like sending out a tweet about that peanut butter and jelly sandwich you are about to eat.

We are a society driven by trends and happenings. A single instance of something can result in massive Regulations and Restrictions and the imposition of fines for violation of the Regulations and Restrictions. Once established, fines go on forever.

Forever is a long time. Many times we even forget what it was that caused the Regulations and Restrictions to be imposed in the first place.

------------------------

Hysteria Surrounding Football Injuries

I admit upfront that I do not know how to prevent serious injury in the sport of football. Injury and football go together. If you were to look up “collision” in the dictionary, you will see a little picture of a football right next to it. (Don’t waste your time looking up “collision” in your dictionary. I made this silliness up but, if the little picture were there, it would be there.)

Here is a list of the fines I saw reported in a recent weekend of this current NFL Season...

• Four Helmet To Helmet Contacts Fines.
• A Striking in the Head or Neck Fine.
• A Kicking Fine...
  >Must be for kicking something other than the football. I am almost certain that it is still OK to kick the football...Or is It?
  >“Houston DE Antonio Smith says he was been fined $21,000 for kicking guard Ricjie Incognito, (a member of the Anonymous Family) who was not disciplined.”
  >This shows how all encompassing the NFL’s mania about fining has become. Someone felt obligated to make sure we knew that the person who was kicked was not fined. Are they really considering fining the kickee?
• A Horse Collar Fine.
• A Roughing Fine…
  >Silly me. I thought being kind of rough on the opponent was part of football.
• Two Unnecessary Roughness Fines...
  >Now I am really confused. The fine in the bullet point above was for Roughness. This fine is for Unnecessary Roughness. Does it not seem to you that, if you were rough enough to get a fine for roughness, then it must have been “Unnecessary”?

The Bottom Line is there were $139,125 total fines to 10 players.

------------------------

I Feel I must Say More about Helmet To Helmet Contacts...

• Defensive players are fined if they make contact with their helmet on an offensive player’s helmet.
• Players are running, jumping, squirming, dodging, faking, weaving and flying through the air at each other.
• After the defender leaves the ground, the person about to be hit often moves.
• As a result of that movement he just might place his helmet in the flying-through-the-air-path of defensive player’s flying helmet.
• Hey Mr. Commissioner, have you noticed that the offensive player is not stationary?
• Come on, man, he is trying to get away!
• Should he not be fined for trying to get away?
• Should he not be fined for placing his helmet in the path of the defensive player’s helmet?

At an absolute minimum the commissioner should require the running, jumping, squirming, dodging, faking and/or weaving offensive player to stand still so that the defensive player can take proper aim.

If we used to be able to put a man on the moon, we ought to be able to get a football player to stand still...Or ought we?

Would I kid u?

------------------------

Lagniappe: If Full Contact Football is replaced by Flag Football, don’t be surprised if the Regulators get to work quickly on changing the game. I can see the first regulation already...

If any player, after having successfully removed the flag from an opponent’s waistband, drops it on the playing field there will be a $95 fine imposed by the Commissioner for Littering.

Gasoline Prices Are Going Down A Little Bit For A Little Bit

It must be very discouraging for anyone who is not me to realize that you are not as observant as I am. Did I spike your interest? Did I get your dander (whatever that is) up? Mission accomplished. That means you are going to continue reading this Foolishness...Or Is It.

Since I am so observant I have taken note of a phenomenon that has been wasting gasoline All Summer Long. Now you are about to know what I know because I am going to tell you what I observed that you did not observe.

Our society is obsessed with an ongoing and growing compulsion to be in constant communication with everyone about everything. Because of this compulsion many of us have taken up the habit of sitting in our cars texting after we arrive at shopping centers before we go in to buy our stuff or as we get ready to leave shopping centers after we have bought our stuff.

Because we are used to constant air conditioned comfort, we have to keep our car Air Conditioning Systems running while we text, tweet or email (email is for those of us who are old fashioned). We are using gasoline but we are not driving anywhere while we use our gasoline.

That, my fellow Americans, is wasteful. That, my fellow Americans, is why the price of gasoline has been going up all summer long.

This is the time of year when it is more pleasant in the parking lots of the Good Ole USofA. Now is the time when we can sit and text, tweet or email and not have to run our air conditioning systems. Now is the time when the price of gasoline can go down.

This situation won’t last long because it is turning colder by the day. It won’t be long before it will be too cold to leave the windows open and the texting people, twits and emailing people will have to turn on their Heating Systems and we will be right back to wasting gasoline again.

This lack of demand for gasoline should cause the price to go down but it probably will not happen. What do you want to bet that the evil people who control the price of our gasoline will get together in their formerly smoke-filled rooms and decide that the dip in demand is so short-lived that they might as well ignore the dip and leave those high gasoline prices up there?

This way they will not have to bother changing the prices outside their gas stations. Since they do not have to change those numbers they will concentrate more on filling our tires, pumping our gas and cleaning off our windshields...Or will they?

Would I kid u?

Is A Pumpkin Emergency An Emergency?

In many parts of the world today people are blowing themselves up so they can blow up those people standing around them. If we could reassemble a bomber’s body parts and interview him, he would probably say that the now dead people that happened to be standing next to him deserve to be blown up because of what their ancestors did to his ancestors back in the year 1156. (More proof that I’m not responsible for all the Foolishness in the world today).

But in the Good Ole USofA we have real problems...

Starbucks is having a very difficult time keeping up with our demand for Pumpkin Spice Lattes!

There you go thinking I made another silly bit of foolishness up but again you are wrong. Actually I am having less and less need to make anything up. The crazy world we live in is sillier than anything the Smartfella could come up with.

Here is the kind of thing that has been happening at Starbucks Locations in recent days...

• A disappointed Latte Seeker left a Starbucks in Manhattan saying he had a bitter taste in his mouth and said he was depressed.
• Baristas are hitting the streets searching for stashes of the Pumpkin Flavored Sauce necessary for Pumpkin Spice Lattes at other Starbucks stores.
• Customers denied their fix are tweeting their dismay.
• A Lexington, KY twit tweeted, “My world almost ended this morning when the local Starbucks told me they were out of Pumpkin Spice Lattes.”
• Back in Manhattan a Barista said her customers have grown emotional on days when she has run out of the Special Pumpkin Sauce. This girl has spunk. She was quoted as saying, “They go crazy. I tell them, you guys do know this is just a drink, right?”
• The desperation is such that many frenzied customers have turned to a powdered version of the latte.
• Stores are now running out of the powdered stuff too and prices are shooting up on the secondary market. An eBay auction has been set up and $6.95 boxes of the powdery blend are selling for $17.
• Some store operators are actually hesitant to get in new product because they fear renewed anger from customers when the limited supplies run out.
• McDonalds has employed a similar limited time marketing strategy with their McRib Sandwich which caused some of their customers to drive as long as 10 hours to hunt them down.
• I’ll finish up these bullets with a quote from a disappointed latte seeker, “A terrible tragedy happened. I placed my order, and the barista informed me that they were out. I was so distraught.”

There are people in our country in real trouble during the dire economic situation we find ourselves in today...Can’t pay their mortgage, Can’t find a job, People are homeless, Gas prices are shooting up, etc.

Contrast the above real problems with the Pumpkin Spice Latte Seekers Imitation Problems as exemplified by the words used in the bullet points above...Disappointed, Bitter Taste, Depressed, Dismay, World Almost Ended, Emotional, Desperation, Frenzied, Prices Shooting Up On Powdery Blend, Renewed Anger, A Terrible Tragedy And Distraught.

I could make their angst all go away with one tidbit of information. There is no actual Pumpkin in a Pumpkin Spice Latte. There is instead a “Pumpkin-Flavored Syrup” which is made up of Natural and Artificial Pumpkin Spice Flavor.

If they knew the true ingredients of a Pumpkin Spice Latte, they would go back to drinking Dr Pepper...Or would they?

Would I kid u?

My Visit To The Beach

I am often asked by people who are contemplating retirement, “What do you do with your time?” I give many different answers because I do many different things.

If I were asked this question today I would probably tell them, “I visit places”. This would be my current answer because I just spent more than a week Visiting The Beach (Panama City Beach, FL).

“My Visit To The Post Office” posting in June 2009 was one of my all time greats. If you care to reminisce with the Smartfella, click on the link below...

http://forii.blogtownhall.com/2009/06/18/my_visit_to_the_post_office.thtml

------------------------

As I said, I was at the beach for more than a week. There is no way I can be anywhere for more than a week and not generate a Foolishness...Or Is It?

My Visit to the Beach Observations

• Walking Phones: Only 3 of every 10 women walking along the beach are not talking on their cell phones.
• Bonding While Walking With Phones: I made a big mistake one day. I saw two women walking together and both were talking on their phones. I could not help myself. I rushed up to them and tried to explain that they were losing a great opportunity for solidifying their friendship. Instead of talking to each other they were ignoring each other and talking on their phones. They looked at me with distain and, if looks could kill, I would have been dead. In unison they put me in my place by saying, “We were talking to each other!” As I said, I made a big mistake. I should have known.
• Dolphins Are Smart...Or Are They?: Dolphins are supposed to be very smart. I watched them every day and I now contend they are rather dumb. First they swim to the west and then they swim to the east...All Day Long. It looks to me like they can’t make up their minds. Does that sound smart to you?
• Noah Made 2 Big Mistakes: Being from Louisiana I have often thought ill of Noah for taking those 2 mosquitoes on his boat. Several times during my visit to the beach I again thought ill of the old boy. He should have left those 2 Sand Flies off his boat also.
• Hiding In The Middle Of the Beach: When I was on the beach I liked to smoke Parodis (small, hard, ugly, cheap, Italian cigars). I got way back from the water’s edge in order to minimize the possibility of a law suit. As soon as I lit up people as far away as 75 yards would stand up out of their beach chairs and start sniffing and looking around for the source of the cigar smoke. What really baffled me was this 75 Yard Odor Detection Radius works both downwind and upwind. How is that possible?
• This is intended for the men reading this posting...I’ll Let You Know When All Is Lost: My always observant beach watching eyes are here to tell you that women now have as many tattoos as men do. Women do still have exclusive ownership of those Low Down Center of the Back Right Above the Butt Tattoos. If ever men start getting tattooed in this area, I’ll send an email and let y’all know. When you get that email from me consider yourself officially notified All Is Lost. You can stick a fork in the male of the species because We Are Done.

If you have not had too much of me and my visits, click below and enjoy (?) my Second Visit To The Post Office in July 2010...

http://forii.blogspot.com/2010/07/another-visit-to-post-office.html

Would I kid u?