Spitting Against the Wind

As it is in every State, here in Arkansas it is an extremely difficult & practically impossible task to reduce any kind of taxes. The full power & force of the government is utilized to stymie any attempts by the peons to in any way limit the amount of money that is sent in to fill the troughs of our rulers. I have only been living here for nine years; but I have already seen several attempts to remove property taxes met with a slew of dirty tricks by government employees and officials. They are so scared of allowing the people to vote on any tax reduction issue that they pull out all stops to prevent any such issue from appearing on a ballot.

The latest attempt to reduce taxes in Arkansas is an effort spearheaded by some fellow Arkansas Libertarians to have the sales tax removed from food and medicine. Rather than just benefiting the evil rich landowners, as a property tax repeal was portrayed, this would save everyone money. This effort is even endorsed by the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, the first time I have seen a newspaper in this state side with less taxes. Who could possibly be opposed to such an issue of fairness as not taxing the necessities of life (food & medicine)?

Government officials are scared to death to allow this to show up on the ballot and have gone through the petitions and tossed out several signatures based on technicalities that are never used to scrutinize ballot initiatives to raise taxes or increase the size of government. Luckily, the Axe The Food Tax group has until August 30 to acquire replacements for the signatures that the Secretary of State tossed out.

You can check out more info on this measure, and find out where to sign the petition at the group's web-site: www.FoodTax.org

KMK
- posted by Kerry M. Kerstetter, MBA~CPA~ATP~ATA @ 8/01/2002 08:31:00 PM Send this post: