TheCatSite.com › Forums › General Forums › IMO: In My Opinion › Government Control
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

Government Control - Page 2

post #31 of 44
4/21/10 at 6:48pm
Actually, a lot of their taxes are not government taxes, they are ones the airlines and airports have decided to add, like security tax etc. I booked a flight for work today, look at the charges
Quote:
Passenger Type \tAdult
Departing Flight - Tango
\t154.00
Returning Flight - Tango
\t154.00

Surcharges \t36.00 (no note on what this includes but they happily add on the & taxes on to it below)

Taxes, Fees and Charges

Canada Airport Improvement Fee SQ \t50.00

Air Travellers Security Charge (ATSC) CA \t14.25

Canada Goods and Services Tax (GST/HST #10009-2287 RT0001) XG \t20.41

Canada Quebec Sales Tax (QST #1000-043-172 TQ1991) XQ \t30.18

Total airfare and taxes before options (per passenger) \t458.84

Number Of Passengers \t1

Grand Total - Canadian dollars \t$458.84
Reply
post #32 of 44
4/21/10 at 10:54pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Yosemite View Post
They can have any kind of party they want but I'd still like to know exactly how much I'm paying for services or items. They can break it down to what is taxes and what is the price of the service if they want, but I want to know what I am paying up front rather than be surprised when I go to pick up the item.
The dirty little secret of taxes is that no corporation pays income taxes. They merely collect the taxes from their customers and forward them on to the government, adding on their normal profit. This is just a minor annoyance to the corporations, and the politicians love it, because it becomes a "hidden" tax.

This works in a lot of ways, by the way. For example, truck owners have to pay a $550 per truck tax every July. They pay it, and it goes into figuring their freight costs. The government could make the tax $5000, and the trucking companies would all just raise their rates enough to cover it, again adding on their normal profit.

Someone (maybe Paul Harvey?) once researched the amount of taxes we pay and found that over 50% of the price of a loaf of bread is actually taxes.
Reply
post #33 of 44
4/21/10 at 11:57pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by mrblanche View Post
The dirty little secret of taxes is that no corporation pays income taxes. They merely collect the taxes from their customers and forward them on to the government, adding on their normal profit.
That's not so secret to anyone who thinks about it. Of course they're going to figure taxes in as part of the cost of doing business, and where do they get the money for all their costs from? (Hint: Not from charitable donations, their uncle Joe, or the Tooth Fairy.)
Reply
post #34 of 44
4/22/10 at 5:10am
This is ridiculous. Our stupid government needs to keep their hands out. When are people ever going to wake up and tell the government to GET OUT!! America...home of the free?? What a stupid joke!!
Reply
post #35 of 44
4/22/10 at 6:16am
I don't have a problem with a higher cost to cover their baseline and profit including their taxes, and it is not what Yosemite mentioned either - what the issue is (and obvious from the bill I showed for the flight above) is all the surcharges they add in addition to the price (GST/QST are expected, they are our normal sales tax put on pretty much everything at 13-15% depending on the Province but the others are all surcharges the airlines charge in addition to the 'hidden' increase to cover their income tax). $50 for airport improvements? Have they ever set foot in our airports - they are not improved! They emailed me back on the 'surcharge' it includes a fee to the air traffic control, a fuel surcharge and 5 other small charges - these should be built in as a cost of doing business.

We own a small construction company, should I call today's customer and say, sorry fuel costs are up, I am going to charge you extra today? No we build in a margin to our prices to deal with fluctuations in fuel and product
Reply
post #36 of 44
4/22/10 at 7:58am
Quote:
Originally Posted by icklemiss21 View Post
We own a small construction company, should I call today's customer and say, sorry fuel costs are up, I am going to charge you extra today? No we build in a margin to our prices to deal with fluctuations in fuel and product
Never heard of an "escalator clause?" Any builder who ignores it is destined to lose money when costs change rapidly. An example would be Hurricane Katrina that almost doubled fuel costs in the space of a couple of weeks, or Hurricane Andrew that tripled the cost of plywood all over the U.S.
Reply
post #37 of 44
4/22/10 at 9:09am
I know what our customers think of one

We quote out jobs and the pricing is valid for a certain number of days, stock is kept on hand so short term increases are not a huge issue (fuel is but we pay a lot more for fuel than the US anyway so we don't always see the same huge increases)
Reply
post #38 of 44
4/22/10 at 9:22am
Quote:
Originally Posted by mrblanche View Post
For example, truck owners have to pay a $550 per truck tax every July.
That's cheap! The state of Kansas charges me 3 times that much each year for the right to drive my car.
Reply
post #39 of 44
4/22/10 at 10:11am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Momofmany View Post
That's cheap! The state of Kansas charges me 3 times that much each year for the right to drive my car.
Note that that is NOT the registration fee, which is about $2500 for a truck tractor (the trailer is separate). Nor does it touch the per-mile tax which is usually paid in the price of fuel. This is just an add-on tax that the government charges, because it can.

Registration is about $70 per year in Texas.
Reply
post #40 of 44
4/22/10 at 11:26am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by mrblanche View Post
Never heard of an "escalator clause?" Any builder who ignores it is destined to lose money when costs change rapidly. An example would be Hurricane Katrina that almost doubled fuel costs in the space of a couple of weeks, or Hurricane Andrew that tripled the cost of plywood all over the U.S.
I've heard that MDF prices are only good for 24 hours because of something going on in South American, can't remember what.


I don't think most of us have a clue of all the thousands of taxes, mostly Federal but state, county, city and others that are being paid.

It is never enough and people just think taxes should be raised again and again and again.


Reply
post #41 of 44
4/22/10 at 2:09pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by mrblanche View Post
Nor does it touch the per-mile tax which is usually paid in the price of fuel.
I used to help my dad with the math on that paperwork, before it was covered in the fuel (at least for some state he had a permit for...I really don't remember the detail, just the piles of paperwork). This trip went through that state and that state and that state, crossing state lines at this many miles, this state charges this many cents per mile and that state charges that many...building it into the fuel prices was a stroke of genius. All that paperwork, nuked from orbit at once.
Reply
post #42 of 44
4/22/10 at 3:25pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ebrillblaiddes View Post
I used to help my dad with the math on that paperwork, before it was covered in the fuel (at least for some state he had a permit for...I really don't remember the detail, just the piles of paperwork). This trip went through that state and that state and that state, crossing state lines at this many miles, this state charges this many cents per mile and that state charges that many...building it into the fuel prices was a stroke of genius. All that paperwork, nuked from orbit at once.
Here's the bad news. You STILL have to report every mile traveled in every state, except now you do it to one entity. Then in all the states take their share, and you have to pay up what you're short (and you'll always be a little short).

The killers are states like Oregon that charge a mileage tax but don't charge fuel tax. Right now I believe it's 13 cents per mile, or the equivalent of 78 cents per gallon of fuel, the highest in the country. Many O/O's don't accept loads that have to go through Oregon.

Probably the absolute worst example of a state trying to balance its budget in a hidden way was Indiana, which back in about 1989 passed a tax that would have totaled up whatever the budget deficit was and divided it by the number of gallons of truck diesel sold in the state during the year, then send a bill to each purchaser for his share of the state's deficit. By the time it was repealed (just a few weeks), a number of truck stops were on the verge of bankruptcy because truckers just stopped buying fuel in the state.
Reply
post #43 of 44
4/22/10 at 5:03pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by icklemiss21 View Post
I don't have a problem with a higher cost to cover their baseline and profit including their taxes, and it is not what Yosemite mentioned either - what the issue is (and obvious from the bill I showed for the flight above) is all the surcharges they add in addition to the price (GST/QST are expected, they are our normal sales tax put on pretty much everything at 13-15% depending on the Province but the others are all surcharges the airlines charge in addition to the 'hidden' increase to cover their income tax). $50 for airport improvements? Have they ever set foot in our airports - they are not improved! They emailed me back on the 'surcharge' it includes a fee to the air traffic control, a fuel surcharge and 5 other small charges - these should be built in as a cost of doing business.

We own a small construction company, should I call today's customer and say, sorry fuel costs are up, I am going to charge you extra today? No we build in a margin to our prices to deal with fluctuations in fuel and product
Actually Eithne, those surcharges were the extras I was talking about - sorry to be confusing. I do expect to pay taxes and in Ontario I know what the taxes are - it's those other add-ons that annoy me. Like you said a $145.00 advertised price ends up costing you over $400. That, at least to me, is false advertising and fraud and I'd love to see the government step in and put a stop to it.
Reply
post #44 of 44
4/22/10 at 5:05pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Yosemite View Post
Actually Eithne, those surcharges were the extras I was talking about - sorry to be confusing. I do expect to pay taxes and in Ontario I know what the taxes are - it's those other add-ons that annoy me. Like you said a $145.00 advertised price ends up costing you over $400. That, at least to me, is false advertising and fraud and I'd love to see the government step in and put a stop to it.
That is what I was trying to say too - they don't even say what the surcharges are unless you contact them and ask, just lump them into surcharges
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: IMO: In My Opinion
TheCatSite.com › Forums › General Forums › IMO: In My Opinion › Government Control