Reginald P. Smithers III wrote:
Eisboch wrote:
"Calif Bill" wrote in message
...
"HK" wrote in message
. ..
Eisboch wrote:
"HK" wrote in message
. ..
Not at all. As I stated many posts ago, a fuel usage surcharge tax
for boats burning more than X gallons an hour at cruise would be
sufficient.
Let's say diesel/gas is $3.00 at the dock...you burn more than,
say, 40 gallons an hour at cruise, you pay $6.00 or $9.00 a gallon.
I could live with that as neither of my boats burn anything close
to that. But there are others that would complain because offshore
fishing is what they do for recreation and they probably have a lot
invested in it.



Let them complain.
And you can just complain when something you like is taxed to
excess. The Govenator's new universal health plan for children in
California is to be paid for by tobacco taxes. What a crock. If it
is a good thing to have cheap universal insurance, then let everyone
pay for it.

Paying for long term programs with tobacco taxes is a Catch 22.
Smoking is declining and additional taxes will only serve to hasten
the decline as will the decline of revenues generated by the tax.

If everyone in the US quit smoking tomorrow, new taxes would spring up
somewhere else to make up the tax deficit. Who's next?

Eisboch


The benefit of the tabacco tax is it will encourage smokers to quit. We
all pay for the increased health cost related to smoking.

I don't see the correlation between smoking and health costs? I quite
smoking when I was 40, after 29 years of two to three, packs a day. I
was sick usually two days a year, never saw a doctor unless a bone was
broken. Then after I quit smoking I fell apart. Back, neck, foot, and
many other things.

I am sure there are some who would prefer that all rec. boating be
outlawed as it is waste of limited resources. I guess we can all buy
sailboats w/o a iron gennie.

If they can penalize half of the boaters now it will be easier to
penalize all of the boaters later. Once the camel gets its nose under
the tent its body soon follows.

Reginald P. Smithers III wrote:
HK wrote:


Isn't it amazing, Wayne, that when I put up a post about boating that
is even slightly controversial, it provokes lots of boating-related
discussion?

Have a nice day.

Actually, this was a great thread, because it did encourage lots of
boating related discussion. The problem with your surtax is it would
not be any real impact on our national consumption of fuel. The only
way to do that is to substantially increase the tax all fuel to
encourage new technology for alternative energy and the use of fuel
efficient cars. Your surcharge on boating related fuel, at best, would
put small boat mfg'ers out of business. These are the same ones you
wish would stay in business.

I do agree with Eisboch, that the government has consistently proven to
be the least effective way to encourage innovation and effective
research to solve complex problems. I would use the tax to encourage
private businesses to find solutions, via tax incentives to those who
are able to find effective solutions.

It does seem that your surcharge on fuel is like everyone's tax
recommendations, they want the next guy to pay the tax, and not them.
Your tax would not really provide a solution, but seemed to be designed
to punish those who have a bigger boat just because they have a bigger
boat.


My suggestion would have minimal if any impact on the manufacturers of
small boats.

The surtax is aimed at what society may deem is excessive use of a
diminishing asset.

Well, there are other ways to accomplish the goal of reducing the amount
of fuel pleasure boats use

BAR wrote:


The benefit of the tabacco tax is it will encourage smokers to quit.
We all pay for the increased health cost related to smoking.

I don't see the correlation between smoking and health costs? I quite
smoking when I was 40, after 29 years of two to three, packs a day. I
was sick usually two days a year, never saw a doctor unless a bone was
broken. Then after I quit smoking I fell apart. Back, neck, foot, and
many other things.

Statistically, there is a very strong direct correlation between smoking
and health cost, just as their is a strong correlation between obesity
and health costs. It does not mean that all smokers and/or obese people
have higher health cost, but these two factors have a major impact on
the cost to society and health insurance, which we all pay for.

Reginald P. Smithers III wrote:
BAR wrote:


The benefit of the tabacco tax is it will encourage smokers to quit.
We all pay for the increased health cost related to smoking.

I don't see the correlation between smoking and health costs? I quite
smoking when I was 40, after 29 years of two to three, packs a day. I
was sick usually two days a year, never saw a doctor unless a bone was
broken. Then after I quit smoking I fell apart. Back, neck, foot, and
many other things.

Statistically, there is a very strong direct correlation between smoking
and health cost, just as their is a strong correlation between obesity
and health costs. It does not mean that all smokers and/or obese people
have higher health cost, but these two factors have a major impact on
the cost to society and health insurance, which we all pay for.


Let's see...

He quit at 40, after smoking for 29 years.

40-29=11.

He started smoking at 11.

That pretty much says it all.

wrote:
On Sun, 11 Nov 2007 07:39:04 -0500, "Reginald P. Smithers III"
wrote:

The benefit of the tabacco tax is it will encourage smokers to quit. We
all pay for the increased health cost related to smoking.

The problem with tobacco taxes is they are terribly regressive. As a
general rule, smokers tend to be in the lower economic classes. That
is why I find it strange that liberals like to oppress these poor drug
addicts. Using this logic, maybe they should legalize pot and the
white powders, then tax the hell out of them too.
Maybe we could save social security after all.


Now you guys are getting into areas other than ways to shove a bit of
fuel conservation down the throats of Americans.

You want to reform the tax codes? Exempt the poor, however that is
defined, and then tax *all* income from, say, $50,000 to $100,000 at
10%, all income above that to $250,000 at 15%, all income above that to
$500,000 at 20%, all income above that to $1,000,000 at 25%, and any
income above $1,000,000 at 49%.

No deductions. No shifting of money coming in to other categories so it
isn't considered income.

Oh, and supervised bookkeeping for corporations. No funny business with
the books. And income tax on corporate profits, too.

Every entity pays.

Churches, too.

No more free ride, unless your earnings are under a certain level.

wrote:
On Sun, 11 Nov 2007 08:37:54 -0500, HK wrote:

My suggestion would have minimal if any impact on the manufacturers of
small boats.


It would be hard to enforce a gas tax on small boats since people
usually just bring the gas to the boat in cans. You really can't tell
whether I am buying "boat gas" or gas for my lawn mower.


Hey, I am in favor of any nearly rational system that makes "excessive
use" of dwindling natural resources *very* expensive for the offenders,
and I've already voted: any individual's boat that can burn 100+ gallons
an hour is, by definition, "excessive use."

We're either going to take energy conservation seriously, or we're going
to run out of oil sooner rather than later.

"HK" wrote in message
. ..
wrote:
On Sun, 11 Nov 2007 08:37:54 -0500, HK wrote:

My suggestion would have minimal if any impact on the manufacturers of
small boats.


It would be hard to enforce a gas tax on small boats since people
usually just bring the gas to the boat in cans. You really can't tell
whether I am buying "boat gas" or gas for my lawn mower.


Hey, I am in favor of any nearly rational system that makes "excessive
use" of dwindling natural resources *very* expensive for the offenders,
and I've already voted: any individual's boat that can burn 100+ gallons
an hour is, by definition, "excessive use."

We're either going to take energy conservation seriously, or we're going
to run out of oil sooner rather than later.


The thing I find crazy...every year the outboard manufacturers bring out a
bigger & more powerful engine.
When will it ever stop?

"HK" wrote in message
. ..
wrote:

You want to reform the tax codes? Exempt the poor, however that is
defined, and then tax *all* income from, say, $50,000 to $100,000 at 10%,
all income above that to $250,000 at 15%, all income above that to
$500,000 at 20%, all income above that to $1,000,000 at 25%, and any
income above $1,000,000 at 49%.

No deductions. No shifting of money coming in to other categories so it
isn't considered income.

Oh, and supervised bookkeeping for corporations. No funny business with
the books. And income tax on corporate profits, too.

Every entity pays.

Churches, too.


Not bad. I'd probably support that.

I have a general question though. Why the stepped increases for higher
incomes?
The person/family making 100k in your plan pays 10k in taxes. A
person/family making 250k pays over three times the taxes (32.5k) but only
earned 2.5 times as much. Just curious as to your reasoning.

Eisboch

On Nov 11, 7:37 am, HK wrote:
Reginald P. Smithers III wrote:

Well, there are other ways to accomplish the goal of reducing the amount
of fuel pleasure boats use- Hide quoted text -


put up a sail?

On Nov 11, 11:01 am, HK wrote:


You want to reform the tax codes? Exempt the poor, however that is
defined,

No more free ride, unless your earnings are under a certain level.

I didn't know the "poor" paid tax's. So how could you exempt them?