My local newspaper had the headline this morning, Tax Hikes Back on the Table. The article went on to say, they can’t cut anymore from the county budget, and in order to meet the 12 plus million dollar deficit in Medicaid they need to raise the tax rate by 5.1%.
Ok, I understand that, but how about these ideas for raising some tax dollars? My first tax, which ties into obesity in America, will be titled the calorie tax. This tax will be collected on both grocery store and restaurant foods, particularly fast food restaurants, and be taxed according to calories. If it is less than 350 calories, then there is no additional tax over the local city, county, or state tax. It would then increase in increments, for argument sake at 500 calorie, 750 calorie and over 1000 calorie thresholds. How about an additional $0.50, $0.75 and $1.00, on top of the cost of the food? This small tax would immediately be deposited in the healthcare fund for that region. The credit card companies can handle the transfer daily.
My thought is, if you are going to eat thatway, then you are going to be treated sooner if not later, in that region. Let’s add a $1.00 to cigarettes, cigars and smokeless tobacco, $0.50 to each bottle of beer, $1.00 to wine and $5.00 to a bottle of booze. Throw that into the same fund. My last and final tax is on the internet. Now the reason there isn’t a tax on most things here is that they were afraid the internet wouldn’t survive. Guess what, that might have been true when Al Gore invented it, but I promise you it isn’t going away any time soon.
The amount of taxes generated for local communities from this simple change would be enormous. We need more tax dollars, why not do something that makes sense?
As a disclaimer, the above commentary was from me, not the company.
Thoughts?
J. Robert Saron
President
Bovie Medical Corporation
Image courtesy of Grant Cochrane / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
