RE: Taxation Thought Experiment

[azur@netcom.com (Steve Schear)]

>Blanc wrote:
>Just before the elections I heard on NPR and read in an article in a
>local newspaper, some people's stories of how they converted from
>Democrat to Republican.
>
>Most of them said that athough they were originally idealistic about all
>the good things which government can do, when they started their own
>businesses they were suddenly confronted with all the excruciating
>regulation and rigmarole which any business must deal with on a daily
>basis while just trying to get some work accomplished.   Very quickly
>they realized the consequences of a lot of the government proposals
>which they had heretofore supported.
>

A case in point: A small company which manufactures premium, hand-rolled,
cigars received a bill from the ATF for an unpaid tax and penalties.  The
notice indicated that the particular tax was over 5 years delinquint.  When
asked where in the over 500 pages of ATF regulations this tax was
documented the investigator said he didn't know and indeed didn't find it
after weeks of trying.  Finally and expert in D.C. found the obscure
reference.  The company wanted to know why they were being billed for this
tax after almost a decade of operation.  They were told that althought the
tax has been on the books the ATF had only recently programmed its
computers to access the tax.  Nevertheless, the tax and penalties were
owed, billed or not.