Value Added Tax: A good start, but there’s more we can do
Our country is in a financial crisis. As politicians work hard to enact necessary policies that will benefit us all, the costs of those policies continues to rise. The president is considering a value added tax (“VAT”) to pay for these important programs. VATs add taxes to goods as they are “improved.” For example, when you make a movie you hire a screenwriter. As soon as the screenplay is written the movie is taxed. Then as soon as you attach a director, the movie is taxed again. When actors are hired, the movie is again taxed. When CGI is added, more taxes are levied. Pretty soon, the government is getting a big return on Hollywood’s investment!
And that’s just one example of how the VAT works. I’m sure there are others. My point is that a VAT is a great start, but I’d like to encourage our politicians to “think outside the box,” so to speak, to come up with new taxes to help pay for our impending financial crises. To that end, I’ve come up with some ideas I think every reasonable citizen can agree on.
Unconsciousness tax: Every day, literally millions of hours of productivity are lost because people spend an average of eight hours per night going unconscious. When people aren’t working they aren’t earning and therefore aren’t paying taxes, so I propose that a tax be levied for every hour people spend asleep. Citizens would keep track of their sleep time in the same way they now keep track of receipts, and declare this number on their federal income tax returns. Additionally, all beds in the United States would be required to come equipped with some kind of device that would measure the amount of time spent sleeping on it, to help people comply with the regulations.
Price guide tax: Americans invest in stocks, which help companies grow, and that helps all workers. Americans pay taxes on the dividends those stocks pay out. But Americans invest in other things as well, such as baseball cards, comic books, and sex toys, and every year those items increase in value — yet no taxes are paid on the value of those items! Under this plan, every year when they fill out their federal income taxes, Americans would have to declare all of their “nontraditional investments,” and pay a tax on the percentage increase in the “price guide value” of those items, whether they were sold or not. Just this year, two very old comic books, Action Comics #1, and Detective Comics #27, sold at auction for over $1 million each. And these books had a cover price of 12¢! If the owners of these comic books had been paying a tax on the price guide value of these comics all along, maybe our financial situation would be a little less dire.
Unusual name tax: More and more Americans are giving their children “non-traditional” names, such as “Apple,” “Heroin,” and “Unusual.” These names are distinctive, but they are also a burden, as the children who bear those names are often the subject of taunting that can lead to expensive therapy that costs all of us. I propose that a new federal agency be set up to evaluate all new names, and impose a fee against the parents who insist on giving their children these “distinctive” names. The fee would slide based on the level of unusualness. For example, the name “Sloppy” might earn the parents in question a fee of $47 per year, while the name “Shithead” might earn them $823. I don’t know what the fees should be (I leave that to the experts), only that there should be a fee.
Law compliance tax: As the law changes, Americans are spending money to comply with those laws. For example, states are making great strides toward banning the dangerous practice of texting while driving. In response, Americans are buying “hands-free” devices. Those devices should be taxed. I’m sure you’ve seen the commercial for the “Jupiter Jack.” They cost about $10 each — and the fact that there’s no extra law compliance tax attached to that price is like a sick joke being played at the expense of all of us!
Another benefit of the law compliance tax would be that it would kick in every time a new law was passed. The possibilities for new revenue streams would be literally endless.
Watch this commercial while you’re contemplating all the great new laws that could be passed to help us to increase our revenue!
Human potential tax: Are you living up to your potential? I’m writing an ironic blog post right now, so I know I’m not. In a way, I’m now shirking my duties as a citizen by not doing everything I can to improve myself and society. Of course I don’t think that people should be forced to do anything in particular; this is a free society, after all. But I do think that the government should impose a fine on those who make choices that are bad for the rest of us. I could have been a doctor, if only I’d applied myself. Taxing people based on their potential will encourage them to be all they can be, and will earn much-needed revenue to keep our government running.
CWFiwlfnGIn QuickerlinvnserTIlglLL tax: I’m actually not sure what this one was. I had the idea for these taxes this morning at about 3 AM, and I wrote them all down in the notebook I keep beside my bed. I didn’t turn on the light, and now I can’t read what I wrote for this one, but I’m sure it was a great idea because all of the other ideas were so great and our government needs all the revenue it can get.
In conclusion, these are only suggestions that I came up with this morning at 3AM. I’m sure that if we all worked together we could come up with some other great taxes that we could pay to help get us out of the mess we’ve created for ourselves. We’re all in this together!
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I could not disagree more. Rising taxes are the problem, not an answer. By creating government agencies to add a VAT or expanding FEMA with “camps” all over the country lead to keeping a population docile. Our country was founded on libertarian ideals not on a country that empowers the government to have power far beyond a citizens right to participate in decisions.Carbon taxes, VAT’S all are designed to create a NWO where bankers choose policy to create a debt burden on the population so our society will be a machine of service and production with zero say in matters of policy. Please reconsider your feelings.
Marc, I am your sarcasm detector. Perhaps you should take me to the shop. I might be broken.
Sarcasm Detector – Most of my feelings are expressed with sarcasm but i did not realise it was incorporated in my comment. Could you be more specific?
Sweet baby Jesus, Marc! The guy is not serious with these suggestions, it is reductio ad absurdium; taking a concept to its ultimate ridiculous conclusion and this fellow is NOT in favor of the VAT. Didja read the thing? If you cannot detect this sort of satire as your sarcasm detector observes, your time here on the internets will be frustrating and counterproductive.
I’ll beat you to it SD! How about taxing taxes? The more taxes you pay the more you earn- So tax the amount of taxes you pay. That should fit in with your scheme.
“I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization.” – Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes.
How about a blogging tax?
Megapotamus- Thank you for the insight…If you read my comment in context to the intent you will see i am in tune.
@Colin: I might agree with a tax on sarcastic blog posts.
@Parsifal: What are we getting for our money?
@Marc: Were you being sarcastic when you thanked megapotamus?
@megapotamus: Thank you.
Yes Ricky… Guilty as charged
I couldn’t help but take note about the Unconsciousness tax. Umm if beds came with devices that detected “activity” couldn’t a healthy, good looking adult single male get taxed for registering “activity” on the bed without haveing been asleep? And there are all those soon to be ex-husbands that spend alot of time sleeping on the couch. I’m concerned that my government has not tried to reconcile these issues and, in the end, we will all suffer.