Re:Re: taxes (was: BBC cutting news jobs)

[Aaron Read <aread@speakeasy.net>]

At 06:11 PM 1/26/2003 +0000, Dave Faneuf wrote:
>---------- "Dan Billings" <billings@suscom-maine.net> writes:
>The
>license fee is a tax imposed on top of the cost of the set.
>-- Dan Billings, Bowdoinham, Maine
>
>Dave:
>I tend to agree with Dan on this one, the license fee as I understand it 
>imposed in the UK is a tax.  It is similar to the "pharmacy assessment" 
>that recently went into effect in Mass.  It's a tax, changing the name 
>"revenue enhancement" doesn't change a thing. A tax is a tax is a tax.
>df

This argument is dragging on a little, but I think something we're ignoring 
is that a lot of the world has a very different view of taxation than the 
US generally does.  Doesn't the UK have something like a 45-50% tax rate 
(roughly speaking)...whereas the US is more like 25%?   The difference 
being that the UK arguably you get a lot more in the way of government 
services (health care, etc).

Yes, yes, I know...you can argue all day about which is better...the 
quality of those gov't services is often questionable, but then again, so 
is ours (the US).



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Aaron "Bishop" Read             aread@speakeasy.net
FriedBagels Consulting          AOL-IM: readaaron
http://www.friedbagels.com      Boston, MA