Ticked about taxes?

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Thursday, July 23, 2009

News Ticked about taxes?

Posted By Rhiannon Fionn-Bowman on Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 12:12 PM

Think voters will mind an extra penny sales tax? You betcha.

Here's the thing: Most of us are middle-class, hard-working Americans. We pay our bills on time. If we don't pay our taxes, the I.R.S. gives us shit.

But, if you're in the top tier of society, you can afford tax accountants, tax attorneys, lawyers and the like. For a (hefty) fee, they'll be happy to help you skirt your tax burden and wiggle out of deals.

Meanwhile, Mom and Pop Everyman continue being dutiful citizens, sending in their checks like clockwork, while our governments, from the top to the bottom, continue setting a bad fiscal example.

So, yeah. Taxpayers should be ticked about paying more taxes. If any one of us ran our households the way the government runs their budget, we'd be out on the street.

At the same time, taxes are a necessary evil in a country where we expect nice roads, plenty of services and clean water and air. I think most people are happy to pay into the pot for the good of all. What we're not happy about is how the big dogs keep taking advantage of our wallets only to waste what they find in there.

Many taxpayers may not notice a one-cent increase in North Carolina's sales tax. But it will be hard for them to miss another tax increase that may be headed their way: a 2-percent surcharge on everyone's income tax.

House and Senate Democrats, who have controlling majorities in the legislature, agreed to both measures this week as part of a $980 million tax package to cope with the budget deficit facing North Carolina.

That would be coupled with cuts in state spending, but Democratic leaders say the tax increases are needed to avoid more devastating cuts to education and social services.

The sales tax increase would be paid in small increments whenever people make a purchase. But when tax time rolls around next year, N.C. residents would be forced to calculate the taxes they owe the state and then add an additional 2 percent.