M.A.W.B. Squad

Cigarette Taxes: Procrastination Pays

You may remember my earlier post decrying a letter from the state of Wisconsin demanding that I disclose and pay taxes for any on-line purchases in the last five years.  I was supposed to reply by July 31, 2005.  I neglected to do so.  Fancy that.  So, imagine my joy upon opening the latest missive from the Department of Revenue:

Governor Jim Doyle has suspended the department's action that resulted in your receipt of a letter in June or July 2005 regarding the purchase of cigarettes over the Internet.  The Governor believes the focus should be on getting the on-line sellers to collect and remit the tax, as opposed to pursuing individual taxpayers.

Do you think the Governor's office received a few phone calls?  I do recall objecting that I didn't appreciate my commerce being held hostage to the state of Wisconsin.

Accordingly, the department has reversed all actions taken with respect to these letters.  Therefore you are not required to complete and return the worksheet you received with your letter.

Notice though, that the letter is dated 10 days after I was supposed to submit the worksheet.  You can bet that anyone who disclosed their purchases will not be receiving a refund from the state.

Please note that it is unlawful to purchase or sell cigarettes to others without a distributor's or retailer's license.

Never did that.  Strictly for personal use.

For your information, cigarettes purchased via the Internet are subject to two taxes:  excise and use taxes.  To pay excise taxes, you should use form CT-121, which is available on the department's website at www.dor.state.wi.us/.  Use tax should be reported on your individual income tax return.

You still owe the tax, and this is how you should pay it.  I haven't purchased cigarettes on-line in at least a couple years, (and I never did find out if it was UPS or the cigarette seller that gave my name up to Wisconsin, though I suspect UPS because I wasn't billed for a specific dollar figure like they were in other states)  Really though, the issue is much larger than cigarette purchases.  The states are not willing to lose their tax revenue to on-line purchases. 

Legislation is coming eventually that will make sure the retailers pay the taxes to the states.  Polls say most people don't have a problem with that as long as it's included in the original purchase.  Right now, it's incredibly expensive for retailers to comply.  For example there are 71 counties in the state of Wisconsin, each can have different tax rules, and that doesn't even account for recreational district taxes, like the Dells.  Multiply that times 50 states.  So, the states are working on the Streamlined Sales Tax project to simplify compliance.  It's only a matter of time.

I can live with it if it's included in the purchase.  But, going through five years of credit card statements would be cruel and unusual punishment.

By the way, here's a copy of the latest letter in case you're interested. (Click to enlarge.)

Christopher Walken 2008?

Someone put up a website, Walken 2008, the idea being to promote Christopher Walken for President in 2008....of the United States.  Now, who doesn't love Christopher's work as an actor?  You see his name in a casting list and it changes everything.  Walken is in it.  Will I be terrified by his madness or amused by quirkiness? Shivers.

Now imagine President Walken running the country.

State of the Union speeches with his impeccable sense of comic timing.  That trademark hesitation.  He could probably make the yellow pages interesting.

When Congress was screwing around he could give them the classic Walken glare.  He might even frighten them into being effective legislators.  ("Ms. Pelosi/ I / can't imagine / you / really want / to vote against me / on this bill. I think/ you / should reconsider.)

You have to admit it would be interesting in that gawker slowdown for the accident kind of way.

Word is that the site is a hoax, but it made for an interesting few minutes of speculation.

Toilet Blogging: We've Cornered the Market

M.A.W.B. writers have a proud history of toilet blogging.  With our plans to rule the world, isn't it comforting that we have our fingers on the very pulse of what's important to the common man?  After all, what is a more basic to our personal dignity than a decent restroom?

Sure, some blogs will try to tell you that razor-blogging is the end-all and be-all.  Patty Smith may frighten you, but I ask you to consider what happens if we awake tomorrow and there are no more razors?

We all grow hair.  Eventually, men start to resemble ZZ-Top.

Now, wrap your mind around the concept of waking up tomorrow morning to discover that every toilet has disappeared overnight? A planet of 6 billion people with nowhere in sight to relieve themselves?

Anarchy.

It would not be pretty.  Beards I can live with.  But, you'd better keep your hands off of the Charmin!

Apparently, we're not the only officials who know how to capture the electorate's attention:

Village council candidates in India should be allowed to stand for election only if they have a toilet at home, the rural development minister says......

"It is unfortunate that a large number of elected village council members and rural government officers do not have toilet facilities in their own houses and defecate in the open," Mr Singh's letter said.

The minister said they needed to change their behaviour and adopt better sanitation and hygiene practices.

"It is essential to obtain their commitment to the sanitation agenda in view of the influence they exercise in the rural areas," the letter said.

Some states have already made amendments in the Panchayati Raj Act, which deals with the election of village councils, to ensure that elected members have toilet facilities in their households.

I'm sure the public will be relieved to know that all M.A.W.B. Squad dictators DO in fact have toilets at home.  India is ours!  On to the world!  I'm actually kind of surprised Hillary hasn't caught on to this hot button issue yet.

P.S.  This, however, is taking a meme a bit too far.

Smoking Police

A New Jersey Assemblyman has sponsored legislation to make it illegal to smoke in your car while driving.  More than likely it won't pass, but idiotic measures like this are often a sign of things to come.

First they came for the smokers.......

NY Post: Profiling's Key

Somebody finally says what needs to be said.  This totally random search PC crap is going to get us killed.  It requires registration, (subliminal message: Bugmenot), but it's worth it.  Yishai Ha'etzni in the NY Post:

The American system's "blindness" cuts off the most important weapon in the war against terrorism: Human capability, judgment and perception. Now that the United States faces a higher threat, it cannot afford to neglect those tools.

Using sociological data as well as constantly updated intelligence information, trained security personnel know who is most likely to be perpetuating an attack, as well as how to identify suspicious individuals through behavior. (Again, it is important to note that ethnicity is only one factor among many used to identify potential terrorists.) Removing intelligence and statistical probability as tools would render this model far less effective.

The idea that we should use random methods to be "fair" is like asking someone investigating a murder to ignore that most murderers know their victims.  It's just not logical.  It's long past time that we face that fact and use all the tools at hand to stop the terrorists.

CAFTA for Jo

The Washington Post is on board:

THE HOUSE is getting ready to vote on the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), a deal that would bind the five nations of Central America plus the Dominican Republic to the U.S. economy. From a commercial standpoint, it's curious that most Democrats in the House resist the agreement: 80 percent of Central American exports already enter the United States without tariffs, so the main effect of the deal will be to open the region to U.S. products. But the political argument for CAFTA is at least as compelling. While the United States has been focusing on terrorism, a new challenge has been brewing in its own hemisphere. House members should consider this challenge before voting to slam the door on Central America's pro-American leaders.

Life After the Left: Real Diversity

Keith Thompson declared his departure from his liberal roots in his SF Gate column in May, prompted in part by watching the Iraqi elections and the progressive response.  He follows up with Life After the Left.  (The first line is a comment from an e-mail he received.):

“I, too, dislike, what the Left has become, but the monolithic, conform-or-die right terrifies me.” If only my anxious correspondent could scan the many hundreds of smart, good-natured, reasonable (and typically quite funny) messages I got from a veritable non-monolith of readers who identified themselves with these kinds of labels: independent, libertarian, classical liberal, conservative, federalist, culturally Western, free-trading, constitutionalist, free-marketeering, religious, religious-and-secular, spiritual-but-not-religious, patriotic. This self-description, spoken more than any other, comes closest to monolithic: “I am an American.” Dangerous stuff — call out the campus grievance committee.

Don’t make me laugh. Two weeks of electronic replies to my public “goodbye to the Left” surfaced more genuine pluralism among the non-Left than I encountered during my years inside so-called “progressive”  America. The one type of diversity that isn’t there permitted — diversity of thought — echoed repeatedly in the messages that welcomed me to new political terrain.

Diversity of thought. I love those words.

Steyn on the Plame Game

With thanks to Aelfheld from Gall and Wormwood:

In fact, the only lying sonafabitch turned out to be Yellowcake Joe. Just about everybody on the face of the earth except Wilson, the White House press corps and the moveon.org crowd accepts that Saddam was indeed trying to acquire uranium from Africa. Don't take my word for it; it's the conclusion of the Senate intelligence report, Lord Butler's report in the United Kingdom, MI6, French intelligence, other European services -- and, come to that, the original CIA report based on Joe Wilson's own briefing to them. Why Yellowcake Joe then wrote an article for the New York Times misrepresenting what he'd been told by senior figures from Major Wanke's regime in Niger is known only to him.

If I lie to you repeadtedly, you'll help me take out a senior administration official, won't you? Steyn's take.

Yost: He's Everywhere! He's Everywhere!

Remember the Yost column, Why They Hate Us?

I was driving home late Wednesday night listening to Britt Hume's Special Report on XM radio when to my surprise Britt does a short piece on Yost's column.  Mark and his lovely wife, have been known to show up at Keegan's for trivia night, so it was pretty cool to hear his name on a news show that I have a lot of respect for.

Fraters has covered the media backlash.  There's also more at the NRO Media Blog.

If You're Playing the Rove - Plame Game

Don't miss this interesting exchange between Cliff May and Nation writer David Corn at the Corner.  May to Corn:

Let me say this clearly: Novak did not know and did not reveal that Plame had been an undercover operative.

You were the first to reveal that.

I love the smell of media credibility in the morning!  (O.K.  It's afternoon, but I'm taking the day off, so it still counts.)