New York Governor Eyes DBS/Cable Tax

[acidcore]

12/17/2008 @ 6:44 PM
In his 2009 state budget submitted earlier in the week, New York Gov. David Patterson proposed a tax that would be levied on satellite TV and cable services.

The governor's office defended the move to tax the video services, saying a sales tax on cable and satellite TV would be consistent with the practices of 23 other states. The proposed sales tax also comes at a time when New York and other states are facing serious budget challenges.

"With the state facing a fiscal emergency, we need to look for innovative ways to improve the operations of our government and deliver services more effectively," said Paterson. "These reforms are a first step toward fundamentally reevaluating the way we do business, which will mean significantly lower costs for taxpayers over the long term."

The proposed sales tax came with other taxing suggestions, including a tax on soft drinks, eliminating a tax break for - of all things - athletic footwear, and imposing a tax on personal services such as a hair salon. In all, 39 new tax items were part of the budget proposal.

[templetonstoy]

As a resident, I understand the fiscal problems faced by the great state of New York, but raising taxes doesn't seem like the answer. If nothing else, pleople will stop buying or using services for which they are taxed. That defeats the revenue-increasing effort.

There have to be line items in the budget that can be cut for things that don't benefit the whole state, like those pork barrell and earmark expenditures that benefit only a small percentage of the population. I've seen some of them in the past, and although I can't specifically enumerate them, some of them were for projects benefitting single municipalities or private organizations...25k here, $300k there...it all adds up.