"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
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"ATP" wrote in message
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"RBnDFW" wrote in message
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Ed Huntress wrote:
"Gunner Asch" wrote in message

A single example are..."Fees"..which are not considered "taxes"

Fees are not taxes. Look it up.

I don't want any part of the larger debate you guys have going, but this
is a pet peeve. When the government cannot increase taxes, either for
political reasons or because the legislature has forbidden it, then the
solution is to add or increase fees. The net result is extraction of
more and more money from the citizens.
Play semantics all you want, but the net result is more money to support
more government.

As long as the fees are in line or below the cost of providing the
service, they are user fees, not to levy them forces the rest of the
population to subsidize the users of that service. That seems pretty
clear to me. The value proposition of how much we pay versus how much we
get from government is a separate question, and I agree that fee
increases without offsetting tax decreases or additional services
represents an increased cost of government with no extra benefit.

Most fees are local. They amount to 22% of local revenue, which stands to
reason, because there are relatively few local taxes, except for
ad-valorem property taxes. They include building permits, water use, etc.

At the federal level, the most pessimistic view of "fees" places them at
less than 2% of revenue. More realistically, they amount to 0.5% of
revenue.

So it's a tempest in a teapot. If you'd rather be "taxed" for building
permits, car registration, etc., you can call them taxes if you wish.

--
Ed Huntress
22% of local revenue in NY is a big number. If my local government starts
charging to use a previously free park, for example, I don't dispute that
the charge is a fee, but the government should still be accountable for what
they are doing with the extra revenue. Same goes for tuition increases at
state colleges. Fee increases on the local and state level in NY have been
significant in recent years. RBnDFW is right, unless previously tax
supported functions were converted to fee supported functions on a revenue
neutral basis, the government is taking more money from citizens.