@roskoredneck1 #taxationistheft #ruralamerica #jre #taylorsheridan #farmtok #ranchtok #government #agriculture ♬ original sound – roskoredneck

HT: Ed Driscoll.

Comedy Break: Ecstatic teen opens his first-ever paycheck, learns what taxes are, is absolutely crushed https://t.co/cRCarYIym9 pic.twitter.com/Zj1siRhENq

— Disrn (@DisrnNews) July 26, 2020

We can all remember the joy felt upon receiving that first envelope with a paycheck inside. Our own money that we earned ourselves, in a real job, just like an adult. All ours!

We’ve gleefully counted up the hours and multiplied them by our wages, and it comes to, from a kid’s point of view, a tidy sum. Then, we open the envelope and look at the check. Omigod! it’s so much less than we were expecting! And then, we realize, they are going to take just as much next week, and the week after, and the week after that.

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Last night, on “Yellowstone,” the nefarious developer offered noble old-time rancher John Dutton $500,000,000.00 ($10,000 per acre) for his ranch.

Wow! we viewers thought, $500 mil, that’s all the money anybody would ever need, all the money any family would ever need for generations. First, we buy something like Llangolen or Carter Hall in Virginia, then a suitable large house in Paris, another in London, a castle in Ireland, and so on.

But, wait, think of the taxes! after the Feds and the State and the County all take their bites out of it, it would be a long way short of 500… (Of course, nobody probably really owns 50,000 acres in the pretty part of Montana, and nobody is going to pay $10,000 an acre in a 50,000 land deal that is not part of Manhattan. But, still…)

Pix11:

Health care workers that came to New York to help fight the coronavirus pandemic at its epicenter will have to pay state taxes, according to the governor.

He addressed the issues Tuesday at a news conference.

“We’re not in a position to provide any subsidies right now because we have a $13 billion deficit,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said. “So there’s a lot of good things I’d like to do, and if we get federal funding, we can do, but it would be irresponsible for me to sit here looking at a $13 billion deficit and say I’m gonna spend more money, when I can’t even pay the essential services.”

Even though the state government asked thousands of people to come to New York from out of state to help fight coronavirus, they will have to pay New York state taxes, even on income they might make from their home states that they’re paid while in New York.

Cuomo said he needs help from Washington in order to cover budget deficits from COVID-19, let alone subsidize state income tax for essential workers that flocked to New York’s aid.

“If we don’t get more money from Washington, we can’t fund schools, right, so at the rate we want to fund them. We are in dire financial need,” he said.

The issue first came up when the temporary hospital in Central Park was being erected by Samaritan’s Purse.

“Our financial comptroller called me,” said Ken Isaacs, a vice president of the organization, “and he said, ‘Do you know that all of you are going to be liable for New York state income tax?’

“I said, ‘What?'” Isaacs continued. “[The comptroller] said, ‘Yeah, there’s a law. If you work in New York State for more than 14 days, you have to pay state income tax.'”

“I didn’t know that,” Isaacs told PIX11 News.

RTWT

Vincent van Gogh, The Starry Night, 1889, Museum of Modern Art.

If you drive a car, I’ll tax the street.
If you try to sit, I’ll tax your seat.
If you get too cold, I’ll tax the heat.
If you take a walk, I’ll tax your feet.
‘Cause I’m the taxman, yeah, I’m the taxman.

—The Beatles

The taxman is at his very worst in New York State, as Red State reports:

New York State recently passed a law requiring citizens to obtain a permit if they wish to gaze at the stars in public parks. No, really. You read that right. In New York, you must pay for a license to look at the freaking stars.

The Free Thought Project first reported on the story, explaining that “If citizens of the state wish to look up at the sky and view the stars at one of New York’s public parks, they will first have to obtain a ‘Stargazing permit.’” The site pointed out that pollution in the sky makes it more difficult for New Yorkers in “highly populated areas” to see the sky at night, so they travel to remote areas, many of which are located in state parks.

The state is charging residents $35 to become a fully-licensed stargazer allowed to view the stars between January and December of the year. If you are not lucky enough to be a New York resident and you are just visiting, you will have to fork over $60 for the privilege of admiring your favorite constellation in the night sky. We were not able to find out how much it costs to wish upon a star, but we can be sure that it ain’t cheap. Okay, that last part was a joke — hopefully.

Clifford A. Brown, at Ricochet:

Collecting Taxes

About $6.23 [$147 in 2016 dollars]: The amount of state and local government taxes collected per person in 1880.

About $4,951: The amount of state and local government taxes collected per person in 2016.

Note that these are not federal tax dollars, but the real growth in the scope of state and local government. In part, federal taxes could not be compared across the same interval as “per person” because the federal income tax was not ratified until 1913. This points to all of us, collectively, voting over and over again for more and more government at every level, in contradiction to the basic assumptions expressed by both sides of the debate back in 1787-1789. We may truly get the government for which we vote!

RTWT

Add the roughly 40% of your income you pay to the Federal Government if you are even moderately successful in life. And don’t forget to add in your own currently $67,000 share in the Federal Debt.

Oh boy, just wait until this poor kid gets his first paycheck. He'll be a conservative for life. 😂 pic.twitter.com/eARn1r6DaY

— Sydney Watson (@SydneyLWatson) July 29, 2019

We left the 1712 5000+ sq. ft. house we lived in most of our adult lives. Local real estate taxes, over 20 years, went from $2000-a-year to $10,000, and the CT economy went into the tank. Nobody retires in Connecticut with the taxes being what they are.

Terry Kirkpatrick tells us that there is now a “People who have left or are leaving Connecticut” Facebook group and reports on the “CT Death Watch.”

Buy U-Haul stock. Connecticut residents are growing pessimistic about the state’s living conditions, according to a survey. A record percent of respondents (47 percent) also said they will likely leave the state within the next five years.

Even in banks? Connecticut to help 10,000 felons get a job in three years.

We like illegals. Gov. Ned Lamont is directing police in Connecticut to not cooperate with raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Glad to help out. While Connecticut lawmakers sold the progressive tax as a way to provide middle-class tax relief and reduce property taxes, neither occurred. Instead, everyday taxpayers have been hit with recurring income and property tax hikes.

Tax those movies. Governor Lamont’s budget seems designed to accelerate the decline. It increases spending by $2 billion while extending the state’s 6.35% sales tax to everything from digital movies to laundry drop-off services to “safety apparel.” It adds $50 million in taxes on small businesses, raises the minimum wage by 50%, and provides the country’s most generous mandated paid family medical leave.

Let me tell you how it will be
There’s one for you, nineteen for me

Now my advice for those who die
Declare the pennies on your eyes
‘Cause I’m the taxman, yeah, I’m the taxman
And you’re working for no one but me.

–Taxman, the Beatles.

NY Post:

Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy is poised to sign a “rain tax” bill passed by the state legislature Jan. 31 — and Republicans and lots of taxpayers are howling with rage.

“Every time you think there’s nothing left to tax, we come up with something else,” Assemblyman Hal Wirths (R-Morris-Sussex) exploded during a debate on the measure.

“It’s just never-ending down here.”

The law allows each of the state’s 565 municipalities to set up its own public stormwater utility. The new bureaucracies will build and manage sewer systems to treat pollutant-filled stormwater runoff.

The infrastructure could cost billions, state authorities say. Under the law, the utilities can levy steep fees on properties with large parking lots, long driveways, or big buildings — which create the most runoff.

The state would scoop up 5 percent of the proceeds.

The idea for the new fee goes back to 2010, when President Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency ordered states whose rivers and streams flow into the Chesapeake Bay to drastically cut sediment pollution.

Maryland was the first to fall into line, with a 2012 law that charged cleanup costs to property owners — and sparked taxpayer fury. Republican Larry Hogan’s promise to repeal the “rain tax” helped sweep him into the governor’s mansion in 2014.

North American Moving Services 2017 American Migration Map.

Gosh, is there anything states shown in red losing the most population have in common, and anything the states shown in blue gaining the most population have in common?

Via: Seattle Sam.

Severian argues that a high tax regime isn’t just about the money.

Taxes have an effect, and it isn’t an accidental side-effect, it’s an ulterior but central purpose: To weaken and distort the messages that bind civilization together, that keep it functioning.

Civilization is made up of very few of these messages: “It is wrong to kill or hurt other people”; “If someone has something you want, you need to acquire consent from them before you take it and that usually means paying for it”; “If you help me get things done I want to get done, I will give you this money.” Liberals and democrats want taxes higher, higher, higher, all the time and they don’t have a set amount in mind, nor do they want to pay for “police, fire departments and park benches”; they just want the taxes to be high, so they can attack that 3rd message that keeps civilization working and functional. Ideally, for them, the tax rate would be 100% and we’d all be fed & sheltered by living on the dole. Then, dependency on the state would also be 100%. Then they’d reach the “fun part” — they tell the rest of us what to do, and we go do it. …

Yes, taxes are required to keep civilization working.

Higher taxes bring civilization to a stop. They’re supposed to do this. They remove the ability, as well as the incentive, for children to grow into strong, complete, capable adults. They’re supposed to do that, too. Minimal taxes are a lubricant. Higher taxes are a solvent.

Remember this next time you hear someone monologue away about the evils of a tax cut.

RTWT