IMPACT FEES are TAXES levied against new businesses specifically when new factories, office buildings, etc.. are built. Those IMPACT FEES which are exhorbitant in nature, pay for road, sewer, electrical upgrades in the communities in which those businesses are established, and often pay for parks, school upgrades, and yes - government buildings.
I've done two busines start-ups, one a Consulting company, another an ISP. The Consulting company I paid excessive taxes of over 50% as a small business owner. At no time did the Government do as Obama likes to say and come along and "partner up" with me, or find ways to help me out.
Rather, at every opportunity, the Government stuck its hands in my pockets and stripped out as much money as they could through some new form of taxation or another. Fax taxes? Yep, we had to pay 'em. Telecommunications taxes? Paid 'em in the tens of thousands. Office lease taxes? Yep, paid 'em. Paid lease taxes on equipment we used to manage the business and paid tens of thousands in quarterly taxes to the State and Fed's based on projected earnings. If one of those payments was late, the State knocked on my door. When I over-paid, it took them 6 months to refund me.
And that was just the Consulting business, and I haven't even touched on the Unemployment Insurance taxes I had to pay in addition to salaries, health care benefits, employee expenses, yadda yadda yadda.
When I sold off my consulting practice in 1993 after 5 years in operation, I figured the damn' Government made more money off my efforts in all taxes, regulations, etc.. than I made for myself. With 8 employees who averaged making $50k/year (in those days, that was a very good salary) I made less than $100k/year for my efforts and I worked 12+ hours a day, often 7 days a week.
When I was an Internet Service Provider from 1995 - 1997, I had 22 employees, office space of about 3,000 SF (including my "data center") and again, not ONE TIME did the Government come along and ask how they could "help me." Again, they stuck their hands out at every opportunity to take more and more money from me. The taxes I paid as a small computer consulting company paled in comparison to what I paid as an ISP with a large dial-up business and web hosting service. I had to pay the village that I established my business in YEARLY IMPACT FEES which were calculated by the number of employees I had, to pay for roads, schools, police, fire, etc.. That was ON TOP of the Income and Small Business taxes I paid, taxes for employees, lease taxes, etc.. etc.. etc..
In two cases where I started up companies, the Government made more off of me than I made for MYSELF. The amount of taxation and regulation at that time was staggering, I can't imagine how much worse it is now.
I'm just so sick and f'ing tired of the "you didn't build that, someone else did" bullshit I could puke. We businesses PAY TAXES OUR OUR BACKSIDES at ever level - Federal, State, County and local municipality for the 'privilidge' of creating a business.
When I got out of the ISP business in 1997 it was the happiest day of my life. I no longer work for myself - too many damn' headaches and too many Government taxing bodies sticking their hands in my pockets. I've worked for someone else since (typically large corporations) and let THEM have the headaches.
I guess in my own way, I've "gone Galt." I've learned how to shelter my income, take advantage of every tax loophole I could find, and consume as little as possible. The day this piece of sh*t Obama got elected, I said I wasn't going to buy a single new item (save for food and clothes for the family) because I didn't want the economy to do well under his SOCIALIST / MARXIST economic policies. With rare exception, I've held to that.
The computer I'm on is 6 years old, thankfully it still does all I need. My cars are 5 and 10 years old respectively. When our dishwasher broke and it cost more to repair it than buy new, I started doing the dishes myself (my wife LOVES that!) rather than buy a new one. When something breaks in our home, if I can't fix it - we do without because we're NOT replacing it.
I'm just so outraged at this "You didn't build that, someone else did!" that I even signed up to help the Romney campaign and wrote a big fat check. Not that Romney's my favorite candidate - he was barely above Ron Paul (dead last) on my list. But I'm just so sick and f'ing tired of this ASSH*LE in the White House telling his supporters he's going to take from ME to give to THEM, so they can continue to live off the fruits of MY labors rather than get off their fat, lazy, druggie, government cheese eating asses and take care of themselves that I've had enough.
I swear to almighty God if Obama gets re-elected, I'm quitting my job, selling all I have, moving what's left of my on-shore money over-seas and moving to the lowest tax state I can find. I'll find a minimum wage job and become a burden to the system first, before this jerk in the White House gets another thin dime from me. F' him.
I think part of the problem with the whole "didn't build that" issue is that, even taking Obama at what he meant, he is raising and beating to death a huge straw man argument. Of COURSE everyone knows that in some way, we all (well, most of us) contribute to society. No one ever made the opposite claim.
The fact is though, that not only have business creators contributed like everyone else, they have contributed FAR MORE than the rest. They owe NO MORE than what they already have given.
Thank you for your informative post. Your experience cements that idea in my mind. Again, thank you!
“POST of the day” BUMP!!!
” I swear to almighty God if Obama gets re-elected, I’m quitting my job, selling all I have, moving what’s left of my on-shore money over-seas and moving to the lowest tax state I can find. I’ll find a minimum wage job and become a burden to the system first, before this jerk in the White House gets another thin dime from me. F’ him. “
Having owned a few businesses, I agree 100%. I just closed my last one, as it wasn’t worth the anguish.
That beyond doubt is one of the most compelling tales I have read on FR. I applaud you for your passive resistance. Would that I could do the same.
I wish there was some way I could get your post#20 into the hands of Rush Limbaugh. I believe he would read it and learn from it if given the chance.
Very well said, and I learned something new from it too.. I had never even heard of an ‘Impact Tax’ before... makes me sick :/
This alone would push many small businesses to outsource. We need to destroy the Fed Taxes and remake it into something reasonable for everyone (that works, anyway).
My father, in the mid-1960s (just before I was born) decided he was going to open his own auto repair shop. So he bought a bit of land at the south end of our hometown, built a three-bay garage, and opened his business. It did, so he always told me, reasonably well. Two years later, the Commonwealth of Virginia swept in, announced that they were building a highway bypass on that land, gave him fifteen cents on the dollar, and took it by eminent domain. They tore down his building, ripped up the land, and today, if you drive US 29 by the little town of Amherst, Virginia, you drive right over his old property. (The shop was in what is now the median of the four-lane, he always said.)
So he bought some more land, fronting on another road a couple miles outside of town, and he built it again. And he worked at it, dear God did he work at it. He didn’t have sewer, there was no sewer out there, he had his own well and septic field (paid for from his own pocket). He paid for the driveway to the highway. He put his own improvements in (paved the parking lot, etc.). He paid the utilities and taxes and pay and insurance and mandatory unemployment for two or three mechanics to help in the four-bay garage. He bought tens of thousands of dollars of equipment, tools and diagnostic machines and pipe-benders for exhausts, radiator vats and headlight aimers and air compressors.
And he prospered, if you could call working six days and fifty-five hours a week, fifty-one weeks a year, through heat and cold and boom and bust, prospering. His reputation meant more to him than money, and he had a good reputation around town. There was never a lack of business. We weren’t rich, but we had enough to get by. Long hours standing on concrete or in a pit straining looking up at a car ruined his back and wrecked his knees. He worked his ass off. He rode my brother, who worked there, harder than anybody.
And what did government do for him? They took his profits as tax money. They hounded him about whether the toilet seats in the bathroom had split fronts or not (not that a bureaucrat has enough down there to get anything caught in a toilet seat anyway). They badgered him constantly with forms and regulations. The Virginia State Police flat-out accused him of felony theft when one book of state car inspection stickers went missing and refused to listen to reason about it. The government told him he made too much money when he asked about grants to send me to college, and at the end of his life, after two years in World War II and fifty years of paying taxes, when he was in a nursing home, the benevolent all-caring government told my mother that she would have to sell the business and two houses (hers and the one my brother rented) before they’d even think about assisting with his care.
The government never did a damned thing for him. “To” him, yes. “For” him? Never.
You didn’t build that, President Obama. My father did. He built a business that’s still going today, outliving him by 16 years with my brother still running it. He built a business that’s been fixing people’s cars at a fair price for over 45 years. He’s provided jobs, done volunteer work, paid in thousands upon thousands of dollars of taxes. THAT is America, President Obama. Not you. THAT is America.
The only thing you build, President Obama, is dependency, despondency, and apathy. You don’t build. You and your ilk DESTROY.
}:-)4