I thought alcohol was essential to our lives. Isn’t that why all the package stores were allowed to remain open during the COVID shutdown last year?
Here in Taxachusetts we don’t tax food and clothing, so shouldn’t alcohol have the same exemption?
Only in our dreams is that possible.
It turns out I am psychic. Who knew?
During COVID last year, not much work was being done by the remote State House, which actually was not a bad thing. The one commission that met regularly was the Tax Expenditure Commission. Its job is to decide if new aspect of our life needs to be taxed – can you guess which way the Commission always decides? If the state doesn’t tax something, Bacon Hill considers it an expenditure on their behalf. Talk about being addicted to our wallets.
One of the items that came up for consideration by the commission was alcohol. We already pay an excise tax on alcohol, but these greed-crazed pols determined that if we tacked on a sales tax on alcohol, the state would take even more money out of your wallet than just collecting the excise tax.
Just as I predicted here last year, they are now coming after our essential booze.
Realizing that in 2010 voters rejected double taxation of alcohol, Rep. Kay Khan (D-Newton) is proposing doubling the excise tax on liquor. This is an especially clever proposal. If it passed, consumers would see a jump in their costs, but not know the reason. There is no excise tax listed on your sales receipt. They would probably attribute it to Biden inflation.
I am just being selfish wanting to keep more of my earnings, because Bacon Hill needs the money for public health, nutrition, substance abuse treatment etc. etc.
Hmmm…. if only there were some way for the state to collect more revenue without increasing our taxes. Oh wait, there is. Legalizing sports betting could do the trick, but for the third year in a row, the solons cannot figure out how to pass sports betting, so all that revenue is fleeing the Commonwealth.
Even neighboring Connecticut has been able to sort it all out (if only for their own residents), but not the Commonwealth.
Another idea might be to find waste to cut out of the $47 billion budget to pay for these programs. How about requiring Social Security number verification to get welfare? That would stop all the illegal aliens from collecting taxpayer funded benefits. Every week illegals are being convicted in federal court in Boston for illegally collecting all sorts of public welfare. Funny how none of these welfare busts are ever done by local authorities, only the G-men.
Legalizing sports betting or finding savings would require an effort. Bacon Hill always takes the easiest route, which is picking our pockets.
After living with the COVID pandemic and eight months of the Biden regime, I strongly believe that booze is essential and that it is time to stop taxing it altogether, let alone doubling the tax on it!
How much you want to bet if passed we will catch Rep. Khan shopping for booze in New Hampshire? It is another prediction likely to come true.
