Everyone Wants To Reduce Their Personal Tax Burden

Whenever the issue of eliminating the income tax and replacing it with a national sales tax comes up, I am asked what I will do for a career. My answer is that my career will go on just as before. Money is money. Instead of helping people reduce or elminate income taxes, I would be just as busy helping people do the same with their sales taxes.

A long running popular tax savings (aka avoidance, evasion) strategy for people who live in states that have high sales & property taxes is to register their vehicles in tax free states. Oregon is one of the most popular because there is no sales tax nor property tax on vehicles. Just as I warn people who ask about doing this, jealous neighbors usually turn in these people because nobody likes to see someone else avoiding the taxes the rest of us have to pay.

This article in today's Arkansas Democrat is interesting on several levels. The high taxes here in Arkansas have driven many people to register their vehicles in Oregon. There is even a local business providing that service for people, for a fee of $1,000. Just as with the most aggressive tax collection state, California, Arkansas is cracking down on the people it can find avoiding the Arkansas taxes.

The extra ironic thing about this Arkansas case is that the lawbreaker who has been arrested is a judge whose very own paychecks come from the same taxes he evaded.

KMK
- posted by Kerry M. Kerstetter, MBA~CPA~ATP~ATA @ 12/14/2001 07:41:00 PM Send this post: