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Quoted from appended article titled "States turn to revenue from fees":
State leaders are loathe to increase income taxes. But there are plenty of other ways they can -- and do -- raise revenue. Think lotteries, bonds, professional licenses, fines, user fees, and sin taxes on tobacco and alcohol... And politicians are careful where they add, always looking for the path of least resistance. It's much easier to raise the cost of a license for a registered nurse or a fishing license than to increase income taxes... Experts said they aren't sure where the tipping point is: when groups revolt over those costs. "There are as many fees out there that a creative person can think of,"Greenberg said. "More and more, it's coming up with fees where you didn't have one before."
There was a tax revolt and taxes were cut for the wealthy and for corporations. Today, user fees are the taxes we all must pay to finance those tax cuts.
We are no where near the tipping point... or so I fear.
Scott
--begin quoted --
http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/15541505.htm
Sun, Sep. 17, 2006
States turn to revenue from fees
Professional licenses, traffic fines, user costs rise with less resistance
By Rick Armon - Beacon Journal staff writer
State leaders are loathe to increase income taxes. But there are plenty of other ways they can -- and do -- raise revenue.
Think lotteries, bonds, professional licenses, fines, user fees, and sin taxes on tobacco and alcohol.
And that's far from all the avenues: States with casinos take a cut of
gaming revenue, and Indiana has leased its turnpike to a foreign
company for 75 years in exchange for $3.8 billion. Now, Illinois may
sell or lease its lottery to raise as much as $12 billion, and Virginia
is considering allowing private developers to build toll roads that
eventually would revert to state ownership.
"This is simple math,"said Sherri Greenberg, fellow of the Max Sherman
chair in state and local government at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of
Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and a former Texas
state legislator. "States have to balance their budgets. You either
have to add or subtract to have a balanced budget."
And politicians are careful where they add, always looking for the path
of least resistance. It's much easier to raise the cost of a license
for a registered nurse or a fishing license than to increase income
taxes.
"The one I've noticed across the states that nobody tends to object to
are the enormous fines for traffic infractions,"said Larry Sabato,
director of the Center for Politics at University of Virginia. "That's
easy money, and it's so hard for people to object to that because
people are engaging in illegal activity."
User fees -- such as fishing and hunting licenses, park fees, driver's
licenses and charges for making copies -- are another favorite area.
The cost of an annual fishing license in Ohio rose from $15 in 2002 to
$19 this year for a state resident. Nonresidents were socked with a $16
increase to $40 over the same period.
Experts said they aren't sure where the tipping point is: when groups revolt over those costs.
"There are as many fees out there that a creative person can think
of,"Greenberg said. "More and more, it's coming up with fees where you
didn't have one before."
The National Conference of State Legislatures last month released its
State Budget and Tax Actions 2006: Preliminary Report, which says
states have raised fees by $78.6 million this year. (Six states had yet
to respond.) That was far short of the $768 million increase in the
previous year.
At the same time, states cut income taxes this year by nearly $600
million, and reduced corporate and business taxes by $124 million. But
they also raised sales and use taxes by $1.1 billion, tobacco taxes by
$478 million, health care taxes by $291 million, and motor fuel or
vehicle taxes by $260 million, the report says.
Nicholas Johnson, director of the State Fiscal Project at the Center on
Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington, D.C., said: "The challenge
going forward is that a lot of states now have gone through their sofa
cushions,"he said, "and there isn't a lot of change around."
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