Someone emailed me about this municipal tax change in Los Angeles, wherein “creators” are going to be taxed at the rate of “occupations and professions” rather than “wholesale and retail.” (WARNING: link contains lengthy comments section dominated by possibly-retarded Texan who turns the entire thread into a debate about whether or not Barack Obama is a secret Marxist and why Texas would be fine and dandy were it to secede.)
Thanks to Creators Syndicate and other such groups flexing their muscles, back in the 1990s creators were classified as “wholesale and retail” business, which has a lower tax rate. In Los Angeles, this matters, because a lot of creative muscle resides in the city. Anyway, Creators Syndicate is predictably throwing a hissy and threatening to leave. I particularly liked how Rick Newcombe, in his Wall Street Journal moanfest, complains that the city is “ignoring its own ruling” and that “the city is not bound by past rulings – only taxpayers are.”
Well, yes, of course that’s the case; any ruling on a tax situation in Los Angeles is going to be issued by the city clerk. Is the city clerk a judge? No. Are they a neutral party? No. The city clerk is an employee of the city of Los Angeles, and can reverse a previous ruling pretty much at whim because they’re only really expressing the tax preferences of the city. Sometimes those tax preferences will be “well, fuck it, we don’t want to get into a fight with Creators Syndicate right now.” Sometimes they won’t be.
And let’s be honest: classifying the job of creator as “wholesale and retail” is the most obvious kind of tax dodge in the first place, the sort of ruling that reeks of back-room gladhanding and favour-trading. Creators don’t sell their products on a wholesale or retail basis; they’re either working on a contracted basis or independently generating product that will be sold “wholesale or retail” only very rarely. The professions are more akin to what “creator” is; this reversal is merely a return to sensible tax policy, which is of course why people are screaming bloody murder.
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Dude. Can we lay off the use of “retarded,” please? It seems to be making a comeback as an acceptable epithet, and that’s not cool.
I agree. We all know there are no retarded Texans anyway, because the state executes them.
its funny because its true.
Even better…
http://www.tshirthell.com/funny-shirts-stock/dont-mess-with-texas/
Creator is not wholesale and retail because they actually do not sell anything. Also can I be awarded some kind of prize for reading through all of those asinine bullshit posts. I mean sweet zombie jesus, most had nothing to do with the article itself.
Texans are funny.
But if “retarded” means possessing diminished mental capacity/ability to function, Shane the Texan in the linked thread exhibits symptoms of both, and MGK quite accurately described him.
I’d have had more respect for Newcombe if Creators had just pulled up and left. No special pleading, no warnings, just a national syndication service (with no obvious need to be set up anywhere in particular) heading to a cheaper place to operate. If he can’t bear to leave because the weather’s no nice, I guess SoCal has him where it wants him. That said, I am curious as to why the tax ruling is retroactive to 2004.
At a guess, because most tax issues in the US have a three-year statute of limitations, and the ruling was issued in 2007. It’s too late for the city to litigate taxes before 2004.
In other words, the city ruled that Creators hadn’t been paying the appropriate taxes for their business type, and demanded the difference as far back as they legally could. (It’s exactly what would happen if the IRS decided that your “business” of setting up money-losing RPGs in your basement was actually a hobby instead of a legitimate business–they could demand three years of back taxes on the income that you’d declared was lost by the business.)
I’m from Austin, which is without a doubt the most liberal enclave in the state, and believe me, we wish we could secede from the rest of our state. Texas is a bit like most of the Internet, the loudest, stupidest voices drown out the rest of us.
I agree “retarded” is not a good way to describe people like Shane the Texan. If only for the reason that it makes actual mentally handicapped people look bad by association.
My vote would go for “Spittle-flying crazy”
Reading it further, I think this Mike Lester guy is sharing a car on the same “crazy reactionary” train as Shane.
How did Los Angeles not have some kind of classification publishing/writing/journalism already that a syndicate could have been slotted neatly into without the farcical claim that it is, somehow, a wholesaler?
I realize it’s the only syndicate based in LA… but really, shouldn’t it fall into the same taxation category as LA newspapers, writer’s studios, or other similar businesses that did exist in the city prior to it’s formation?
Shane is obviously some kind of anarchist, the kind that worships “The Free Market” as some kind of brilliant self regulating entity that will always provide, especially for Randian supermen like himself who WOULD be rich, if not for taxes and socialist conspirators sabotaging him at every turn.
DistantFred: lovely description of Shane the Texan! To me it sounds a lot like those whiny pitiful creatures in Atlas Shrugged, those who WOULD be successful if they would only be given equal chances. LOL!
Semi-related question: besides secession talk, what other comparisons can be drawn between Texas and Quebec?
I tend to make more comparisons between Texas and Alberta.
Sensible tax code I am in favor of, but Creators don’t get paid very much to start with. They just seem like a poor (literally) target to pick on in LA.
Also been trying to rid myself of “retarded” as an epithet, having trouble finding similarly short substitutes.