Monday, February 26, 2007

Tongue-in-cheek food tax tip reveals a sliver of integration

Everybody is the same at checkout

The political weekly The Tennessee Journal wondered aloud whether a certain class of foreign citizens could figure into the ongoing food sales tax debate in the Tennessee legislature:
Gov. Phil Bredesen has used several arguments against reducing the sales tax on food but still hasn’t figured out the one that might work: Cutting the tax on food would help illegal immigrants. A lot of them buy very little besides food, sending the bulk of their earnings home to their families by money order. So there are few opportunities to tax them other than on food. That would certainly be in line with the logic of a bill by Rep. Stacey Campfield (R-Knoxville) and Sen. Dewayne Bunch
(R-Cleveland) — a 25% tax on money orders purchased by non-U.S. citizens (HB 768/SB 690).
Regardless of what else is implied by this tongue-in-cheek suggestion, it is certainly correct to point out that sales tax applies to everyone. Visaless expatriates are integrated into civic life in many ways, one of which is that they pay the same sales tax as everyone else.

Photo by Janusfinder

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