Farmers Markets and Others Targeted-Tax Squad!

[Devany]

Carrie... "You go girl!"

Here is the truth, in our society there have always been bartering and cash under the table. Try as they may to stop it, it happens. Seems like a while ago someone was even talking about printing "Puna Cash" that would work like a bartering system.

I love the farmers and everyone has a right to sell their own junk at a flea market or garage sale... however, when it becomes a business, they should be paying taxes. Hawaii has an unusual taxing system compared to most states, taxing EVERYTHING. In some cases it does seem unfair. Like Carrie is going to have to charge tax on her cleaning services and when I sell my ceramics to galleries here I charge tax and then the customer is charged the tax on the retail price again. Tax paid on rent is a new idea to me, when I saw those ads in the paper I was thinking "huh? Plus Tax???" but it is the way our system works.

Personally, I think our state and county would better benefit by cutting some wasteful spending like school administration and excess state and county employees. The truth of the matter a serious study would have to be done to find that wasteful spending and to determine where they really can cut costs on employees and that would cost more money,so I do not see that happening anytime soon.

Spending money on cracking down on farmer's seems like a paltry sum when there are probably a lot bigger fish in the sea. Maybe they should spend some $$ cracking down on delinquent property tax payers, vacation rental and illegal B & B owners or audit some income tax returns instead. There is probably a lot of "found" money out there for the state, but going after hundreds of small time tax payers also requires a huge amount of administration and overseeing. Do we really have the staff to handle that? Is it worth the cost of hunting all of them down and then auditing them to be sure that they catch every penny? Is it even possible?

I am with Jerry, I do not think that food should be taxed... better yet, locally grown food. Why don't we petition the Governor to make every consumable food product grown in hawaii tax exempt? That might actually encourage people to shop locally and that is better for the local economy in the end.

Aloha au i Hawai`i,
devany

www.myhawaiianhome.blogspot.com
www.eastbaypotters.blogspot.com