Posted on 11/15/2014 5:42:24 PM PST by PROCON
This year, your real Christmas tree will be more expensive than it needs to be. That’s because the Department of Agriculture is imposing a fee on each fresh-cut tree sold.
A few months ago, the federal government created a national marketing program to advertise the virtues of real Christmas trees. It’s funded by a 15-cent surcharge that will be added to the cost of each tree sold. It’s not a tax, Washington insists -- merely a fee that you have to pay.
“The Christmas tree industry requested this initiative to fund Christmas tree research and marketing, the program will be funded solely by the industry, and the government is not imposing any tax on Christmas trees,” an Agriculture Department spokesman explains.
It’s a distinction without a difference. If a fee is imposed on a product by a government, it’s a tax on the consumer.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Hmmm, where have I heard that before?
Paging John Roberts...
Blame the Republicans for not stopping this tax.
Using the Gruber logic .... the consumer is too stupid to figure out that they are paying the fee and not the industry.
Call it an Allah tree. Will it be tax free then ?
5 years from now it will be $5 per tree etc... etc......
Anti-Christian
If the government insists on doing these ridiculous programs I'd rather have the cost added to the product than assessed on all taxpayers.
Is this a sales tax?
Farmers often pay into state or federal programs that promote a product. It’s a cost. But it is not a tax at the public sales register. Is this?
Trees are grown on private land not government land. Where do they get off taxing that????
Yet another reason for an artificial tree, or, go into the woods and cut your own. FUBO!
Sometimes industries lobby for it.
If they have the authority to impost a 15 cent tax, they can impost a $150 tax. The amount is irrelevant.
It has nothing whatsoever to do with Christianity. It’s just another opportunity for the guv to say “HEY, there’s COMMERCE going on here! GIMME GIMME GIMME!!!!”
So if the industry wanted to do research and marketing why didn’t they do it themselves and cut out the Uncle Sam middle man?
Adding government to any endeavor increases the cost and cuts quality of any resulting product.
More likely this is the beginning of a scheme to reduce the number of individual Christmas tree producers and marketers.
A new public-private partnership or put another way; Just more crony capitalism.
It’s like adding a penny tax to each ear of corn.
Because the more tax revenue the gubmint takes in the better it is for the grifters..duh..
this is the kind of thing that bugs me, you have all these egg boards and dairy compacts and stuff that need abolished
Just don’t CUT them...leave the root ball intact and let the customer do what he wants with HIS tree. FUBO
Let me be the first to say it— Bah! Humbug!
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