Editorial #257 Death and Taxes
Ben Franklin said: “Nothing is certain but death and taxes”. In Nebraska it is in a reverse order. Taxes are killing the farmer by taxing their property, causing the demise of family farm. The sad part is the urban population does not seem to care.
Band aids to limit annual increases in property taxes does not solve the problem. It only delays the inevitable with the farmers still going broke, but over a longer period of time. The majority of Nebraska’s tax revenue comes from agricultural land. To tax property means that the owner never really owns the land, actually only renting it from the government.
Farmers and ranchers use the land to make their living and it is almost their entire net worth. To be required to pay a percentage of their net worth annually is unsustainable. No one else is paying a percentage of their pension, IRA, 401K or their stocks and bond portfolio to the state each year. If property is going to be used to figure out their tax bill, then let’s tax all stocks and bonds each year as well. If this is not an acceptable alternative to the urban population, then we must eliminate property tax entirely as it is unfair and violates one of our core values and the golden rule.
Income tax is a disincentive tax on success and to carve exceptions makes it even more unfair and discriminatory by rewarding low productivity. Why does the government think they can steal half of your net worth when you die in inheritance, after you bought it with after tax dollars and with government doing nothing but tax you while you owned it? It is un-American for success to be penalized.
Taxes are becoming a game of “us vs them”. We are supposed to be a government: “of the people, by the people for the people”. Instead, taxpayers are looking at government as the adversary and suspicious of how it spends the money they take from us. We have found the enemy and it is us!
The tax on consumption is the only fair system in a capitalistic free market economy and the most progressive. When one spends more, voluntarily, one pays more taxes. LB 133 by Senator Steve Erdman, call the Consumption Tax, is the best, simplest and fairest option to solving this huge tax problem.
Nebraska needs $9 Billion each year to pay its bills. With a consumption tax, the regressive nature of tax is eliminated. A nine percent tax on the estimated $115 Billion of consumer purchases would solve the problem and eliminate all the other irritating and unfair taxes. It would cause our state’s economy to explode and because of the favorable business climate of no taxes on businesses or agriculture.
A tax on any business is a shell game and a fraud, playing into a socialist mind set. Any tax on business is always passed through and paid for by the consumer. Having a domestic consumption tax would make Nebraska the envy of all the other states and a great place to retire, because we would have no income, property or inheritance tax making Nebraska the most pro-business state in the country.
The only job we have is to make the world a better place. Fixing our tax system with LB 133 is a very good start. Call your senator and ask them to support Senator Erdman’s LB 133.
This is Keith Kube wishing you the best in making the world a better place.
Keith has a regular commentary on WJAG 780 radio at 7:40 on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Check his website www.keithkube.com for past editorials.
