[Vision2020] IBTA Decisions

[g. crabtree]

Royalty's response to dated architectural style is spot on. Every tax dollar 
not collected is money better spent anywhere else. If history shows us 
nothing else it's that government will spend all available money and more. 
Celebrate every dime it's denied.

gc
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Taro Tanaka" <taro_tanaka at hotmail.com>
To: <vision2020 at moscow.com>
Sent: Sunday, June 04, 2006 1:20 PM
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] IBTA Decisions


> Art Deco writes:
>
> [[ Whenever one person, a group of persons, or an organization is given 
> preferential tax treatment, the rest of us must make up the difference 
> with our tax payments. ]]
>
> Putting aside for a moment whether this claim is actually true, isn't it 
> an irrelevant point? Nobody is being given preferential tax treatment in 
> this case. The part that is being used for business is fairly taxed, and 
> the part that is being used for non-profit is fairly exempted from tax.
>
> (One could also make the counter-claim that since, on the one hand, most 
> money paid in taxes is wasted, while on the other hand money remaining 
> outside the coffers of government is mostly NOT wasted, everyone in 
> society benefits when money collected in taxes is minimized rather than 
> maximized.)
>
> [[ I resent having to pay for the Hertiage Foundation pursuance of their 
> goals and I am sure that there are members of the Heritage Foundation that 
> resent being forced to pay for the activities of the Brookings Institute . 
> . . This is a clear violation of personal freedom to choose what 
> ideals/activities to support with our own money. ]]
>
> There is a rather convoluted logic at work in the above statement, but the 
> best way to deal with the perceived problem is to reduce government 
> taxaton across the board. The total tax burden on all of society could be 
> slashed by more than 75% and the government would still be collecting more 
> money than it needs to accomplish the legitimate functions of government.
>
> [[ we as citizens and they as legislators are basically ignorant of the 
> cost to each taxpayer of these gifts and the financial and ethical impact 
> on those not so gifted. ]]
>
> Again, there is some very convoluted reasoning at work in the above 
> statement. It is like a thief deciding not to steal my wallet and calling 
> it a "gift" to me from all the other people that he is going to steal 
> money from. The fact remains that the net cost to the taxpayer of these 
> "gifts" is negative. And what on earth could conceivably be the "ETHICAL 
> IMPACT on those not so gifted?" (Emphasis mine.) Are the "gifts" causing 
> "those not so gifted" to be full of envy?
>
> [[ A start to curing . . . would be . . . to determine . . . the amount . 
> . . lost  ]]
>
> This is inherently unknowable with any sort of accuracy, because any 
> accurate calculation would also have to take into acount the resulting 
> GAINS.
>
> That entire post was so rife with fallacious, shallow economic thinking 
> that as an antidote I can only urge the author to go read Henry Hazlitt's 
> "Economics in One Lesson," which starts at the following link:
>
> http://jim.com/econ/chap01p1.html
>
> See especially the section "Public Works Mean Taxes." But the entire brief 
> work is arguably the single best piece of economic writing ever, and I 
> cannot recommend it highly enough.
>
> -- Princess Sushitushi
>
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