Posted on 12/04/2013 5:18:59 AM PST by IbJensen
America’s Founding Fathers fought a war to put an end to England’s taxation of the American colonies without allowing the colonists representation in the English Parliament. Today, Americans gleefully tax others without representation.
In a practically secret election on Aug. 6, Butler Township residents created two new Joint Economic Development Districts (JEDDs) to tax non-residents. Why raise taxes on yourself when you can vote to raise them on people who can’t vote to stop you?The Dayton Daily News reported, “The business district passed 1,158 to 616 with a total vote of 1,774 and the hotel district passed 1,159 to 611 with 1,770 votes.”
It’s nice to know there are 611 people in Butler Twp. with a conscience, but they are far outnumbered by plunderers who just want to steal from people who have no power to resist.
The Dayton Daily News provided the details: “The development zones will allow the township to assign a 1 percent corporate tax and a 1 percent employee income tax in areas located from I-75 to the east side of North Dixie Drive and from Benchwood Road up to the south of Maxton Road. The zone boundaries also will be on both sides of Miller Lane, from Maxton Road to Little York Road. The only residents who will be taxed will be the ones who work in the proposed economic development zones.”
All taxation is theft. Tax hikes are often quietly put on ballots other than the November ballot because few people realize there’s an election. This makes it easier for the people who benefit from the stolen money to overwhelm their victims at the polls. But in the case of JEDDs, many, if not most of the people getting plundered don’t live in the township, so they can’t vote against the tax. This is doubly evil, and it’s happening everywhere. H.L. Mencken claimed, “Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.” He was right.
You might think plunderers would have trouble justifying such naked theft. You would be wrong. The Springfield News-Sun propagandized, “Townships use economic development district funds to spur growth.” No, they don’t. That’s not possible. You can’t steal something that doesn’t exist, therefore the development always comes before the plundering. Walmart and all the businesses that Walmart attracted didn’t decide to open a store in Butler Township because of the JEDD. Voters imposed the JEDD because Walmart and those businesses were already built and thriving.
Pretty much everywhere you see a thriving economic center on the outskirts of town, voters have imposed JEDDs to plunder some of the wealth being created. The Sun revealed, “Employees in the Dayton region not otherwise subject to local income tax have paid $7.1 million from their paychecks because they work in a joint economic development district.” JEDDs made those people $7.1 million poorer, but the burden doesn’t end there. It also creates a compliance burden, as people have to file taxes in multiple districts.
JEDDs also plunder and restrict businesses. WHIO described a JEDD near Lebanon: “‘The easiest way to understand a JEDD is to consider it like a homeowner’s association,’ [Turtlecreek Township Trustee Jonathan Sams] said. ‘Where you have certain covenants and restrictions because you want the development to go in a certain direction.’” Socialist central planning like this can only harm development.
WHIO continued: “There are no residential parcels in the JEDD and part of the new agreement calls for a 1 percent income tax that will be imposed on new developments. The township and the city will each received [sic] 45 percent of the taxes collected, and Lebanon will retain 2 percent for administering the tax. Eight percent will be invested in the JEDD area.
‘This is unique to JEDDs anywhere,’ Sams said. ‘Eight percent of the JEDD revenues stay within the JEDD district itself for beautification and maintenance.’” This exposes the lie about development. Only 8 percent of the plundered wealth stays in the JEDD, and that’s unusual.
Between the taxes and regulations, it’s obvious JEDDs are bad for business. Businesses want to keep costs down so they can provide higher quality products at lower prices to their customers. Thriving economic centers like Walmarts are built on the outskirts of cities to avoid city taxes. High taxes are why Dayton’s economy stays bad while the suburbs do better. But once businesses are established, the plunderers come along and create JEDDs to legally steal from them.
This theft has consequences. It drags businesses into decline. USA Today reported on Aug. 15, “The Dow Jones industrial average shed about 1.5 percent – 225 points – on disappointing Wal-Mart earnings, news of job cuts at Cisco, weak economic reports and 2-year high in 10-year Treasury yield.”
Walmart’s business model relies on very low prices. Taxes drive up prices. These new taxes on Walmart are hurting the company and hurting everybody, since we have to pay more for products. The lesson we should learn is taxes harm the economy and make everybody poorer. We should cut – or better yet abolish – taxes so our economy can rebound.
( Mark Luedtke is an electrical engineer with a degree from the University of Cincinnati and currently works for a Dayton attorney. He can be reached at MarkLuedtke@DaytonCityPaper.com.)
It is indeed an evil central socialist government; however, the local governments are complicit in this scheme.
For one thing, a "tax district" like what is described here is aimed at addressing a particular challenge in certain tax structures, where the major sources of taxation (corporate, personal income, etc.) don't raise revenue from businesses that use public resources but may not pay the cost of them. This "tax district" approach is ideally suited to pay for infrastructure improvements like transportation, water and sewer utilities in industries that employ a lot of people but don't contribute enough to the tax base to cover the cost of their burden on the local infrastructure.
If I live in City A and work in City B, one of the anomalies of the tax system may be that I pay all of my municipal taxes to City A but spend a third of my life in City B.
We recently had a local ballot for a school expansion for a ADDITIONAL gymnasium. In a school with less than 400 students K-12. We already have a nice gym.
Every voter in the district was MAILED a ballot.
However, the instructions were so confuusing and lengthy for mailing them back, plus you had to pay $4.00 to mail them back.
The election office is under construction so to hand deliver your ballot took quite an effort.
30% of the ballots were returned. Of the 30% the vote was 60 / 40 in favor. The local paper reported it as an overwhelming show of support.
It was not an overwhelming show of support. 60 percent of 30% were in favor. 40% of 30% were opposed and the rest were either too lazy, uninterested or too confused to reply.
Never have we ever had such a ballot measure in our district. They pushed this through in an off year with no other measures so they could be assured it would pass.
Passage of a tax increase with only 18% of the electorate in favor. Dirty tricks and there is nothing that can be done about it.
In Ohio both the cities can charge income tax. In most cases City A will count the tax you pay to City B as a credit. I live in a city with 2.25% tax and work in a city with a 1.5% tax, so I pay 1.5% to City B and a net of 0.75% to City A. However, the residential city is not required to credit the tax paid in the working city. If those cities were reversed I would have to pay 2.25% to the city I worked in and 0.5% more to my residential city because they only allow a maximum credit of 1.0% instead of the full amount.
Taxation without representation is alive and well in Ohio.
I live in a town in South Texas and there have been limits placed on tax % increases by Texas Statutes.
However!!!!! They get by it by simply increasing the tax value of your property and VIOLA! They are able to circumvent the system altogether.
I have not had a tax % increase on one of my properties in over 10 years but the tax I pay is more than double that which I paid 10 years ago. The reason? They simply valued the house at twice the price it was 10 years ago.
Guess where most of your property taxes go? To the bloated and out of control school district.
I believe that school taxes should be paid by people who use the service for 12 years for each child they send to school...while they attend. Home schoolers should be exempt. Why should a 70 year old man pay school taxes for 52 years for having no children in school?
Isn’t it wonderful that you can teach your children morals at home and then be forced to pay the indoctrination centers for the privilege of having the socialist system brainwash them to believe just the opposite?
Every American has been taxed without representation since we started paying Congress and the POTUS.
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