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Councilors to try again to get a 2% Boston booze tax
By adamg on Mon, 12/12/2016 - 8:58am
The Globe reports city councilors Bill Linehan (South Boston, South End, Chinatown, downtown) and Frank Baker (Dorchester) will try again this week to get their colleagues to approve a request for a 2% tax on Boston liquor sales to raise funds for addiction services.
The two first proposed the idea last year but it never went anywhere.
If the council does approve the proposal at its Wednesday meeting, the measure would also need approval of Mayor Walsh, the state legislature and the governor.
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Comments
How about sending a bill to
How about sending a bill to all the other cities and towns which deport their addicts Boston to pay for addiction services?
Before and especially after the economy tanked in 2008 the practice of many smaller cities and towns has been to balance their budgets by cutting their addiction services and sending their residents to Boston. Either they take care of their own at home or Boston should get paid for doing so.
what?
You think Boston's addicts are not from Boston??
Drip drip drip
First it's the zombie tax on personal property.* then a few years ago it was a meals tax, then it was the New 1% property tax for open space, affordable housing etc. Now perhaps a nickel for bags (I know, technically not a tax). Recently it's the shift in the residential exemption. Now 2% extra on booze.
Are they jealous of NY and SF that we are not the most expensive city in the country?
Good thing we have friends in NH that we visit a lot...
*there is a "personal property" tax on mostly business equipment. The businesses depreciate the property and eventually they pay no tax on those items. But the tax never goes away and compounds at 2.5% per year. It's the Seinfeld tax-a tax about nothing and in a few decades it will overwhelm taxpayers - very slowly and very insidiously. Same thing goes for other properties acquired by non-profits.
Good points, but that personal property tax is a joke
Council feels the need to fund their pay raise.
But the personal property tax on business equipment is largely a joke. Ignored by a majority of businesses, as if it were a No Parking sign.
Parking signs
The problem is not the tax in any given year. The problem is that most of that property has long since been fully depreciated, but the tax on it then gets distributed to all other taxpayers and keeps compounding. Property now sitting in landfills costs each homeowner hundreds of dollars a year in taxes on stuff they never even owned.
Yup
How long until a Boston city tax like NYC?
That must be why
no one wants to build, live, work, or visit in the city. It's not like there's a massive logjam of people wanting to put out their shingle in the the largest and densest concentration of wealth in New England, or anything. People are just fleeing the city like Detroit in the '70's.
I would also happily shoulder any tax increase that the city wanted to throw my way, if they could provide me with a subway system that is the equal of the MTA. Seriously. Bring on the city income tax, if it means 24-hour service to all parts of the region.
Also, the residential exemption shift was a tax decrease.
No it wasn't
This is how they scam you - it was a tax shift - net, net the residents didn't get a cut. In fact, about 75% of residential owners get an increase (all landlords and owners of higher value properties). this law is one of the reasons there is virtually no "entry level housing" in Boston. About the only people that get any break - long term - are upper middle class families - to the tune of a few hundred dollars a year (the actual break gets smaller as your home becomes more valuable until about $1.2 million I believe - then you actually pay a higher level of tax).
I gave testimony about how damaging this rule is when you really understand how it works. One councilor I was speaking to afterward said essentially I may be right - but he voted for it "because people like it" - because they have no idea how it's costing them money - like you they think they are getting a non-existent or larger than they think tax break.
No. Just, no.
After what this city pulled, and is still pulling, with Long Island, they have the gall to try to do this again?
I'm all for supporting these programs, as the people who need them are part of our community (I'll even take people from other cities if the state starts kicking in and pulling funds from said cities for it–wishful thinking, I know). But for the city to propose another tax on us while Marty and company are 90% of the problem? GTFO.
100% to re-open Long Island
That's a great idea Chris. Put 100% of the new tax money toward re-opening Long Island. That is win-win for basically everyone.
If it's a win for everyone
Why would only those who like to drink alcohol be the ones paying for it?
Yes...
... if everyone benefits, everyone should pay his or her fair share.
Have you read Dr. Amen's work?
People who drink alcohol lose brain cells and have shrinking brains.
Here's a helpful link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2wneBVssPc&list=PLI-aE2vM93rcInPgmDtjk-...
Seems like a good cause....
to divert the tax revenue from retail sales of marijuana to. OH WAIT every politician and their lawyers opposed that, and whaddaya know, it passed anyway. Now the brilliant political minds of MA will stall and stall and stall with creating zoning and regulations for MJ business, while at the same time holding their hands out for more tax money from everywhere else. THE PEOPLE OF THE COMMONWEATH ARE TRYING TO GIVE YOU MORE TAX MONEY IDIOTS. We voted for a whole new industry to tax. Millions upon millions of dollars on the table. Just take it for Christ sake.
I'd be more open to something
I'd be more open to something like this if it was included in the price. I still don't understand why tax is always on top of the price you see, unlike pretty much everywhere else where the price you see on the tag is the price you pay.
So screw everyone who 'drinks'
due to the issues a small percentage of people have?
If you drink so much that 2% matters ...
... you are the one who needs treatment.
Thanks for judging
But that's not the point. What if next week they decide to tax cheese at 2% to fund safe driving courses. Maybe a 2% chicken tax to fund high school athletics?
200% tax on turkey products
200% tax on turkey products to fund the war against rogue turkeys?
The real problem
Grandstanding about taxes while continually whining that we don't have nearly the police state that you want or that Nobody is Doing Something about these Things that Government Does!
Pure greed.
We are being robbed enough already!
Draft beer pushing $8. And have
you noticed the shrinking of
the martini glass,for upwards of
$10 to $12! And these idiots
want to help prices go higher.
Maybe there campaigns pay
for there nights out!
These Councilors are all a
Bunch of CLOWNS! Raise the taxes and fees on everything and then give themselves a raise! What a joke! Vote these people out!