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Sin Tax for Guns? Might work ...... [1]

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Date: 2023-05-21

Social Policy through taxation - how much is reasonable ? Depends on who you ask of course.

So there’s an old old habit here in Michigan whenever Lansing needs to make up a little hole in the budget. Just raise the Sin Taxes a little bit. Sin taxes, for those who've never heard of the term, are typically taxes on cigarettes' and alcohol. Basically, their tax rates keep pretty much up with inflation, plus a bit.

Way back in the day vending machines sold a pack of smokes for a handful of quarters. When the war on tobacco was just getting into full swing, a pack of Marlboro Reds cost about 3 bucks if you got the 2 pack deal. Then, they started getting more expensive. Today that same pack can easily run 10 bucks. Now I have great respect for the people who won all the court cases against the tobacco companies and got us all the health warnings, settlement money and more. But in my humble opinion, those high taxes are really the main reason casual smoking has waned. It’s just too frigging expensive.

Alcohol tax, cannabis tax, and gas tax are all regressive as heck, which is generally a bad thing. But, they do help keep demand down. Supply and demand works — when the price goes up the demand goes down. Necessities can be an exception, like taxes on groceries or (for now) gasoline. People just get poorer because government finds it easier to tax people in a “hidden” way. But sin taxes, those are reserved to make life hard on people making a purchasing and consumption choice based solely on a personal want. And with those items, when the price goes up, the demand does go down.

Which brings up the gun tax idea. Why not tax ammo? I brought this idea up to a “moderate” conservative friend who’s a gun owner, and it got testy very very fast. This gentleman says January 6th was a mistake, wishes for a choice other than Trump (who he voted for but feels let him down) and still catches his daily dose of Fox indoctrination. He tried playing Fox in the office one time so I ramped up a Maddow podcast. Needless to say the office was ruled a quiet zone by management.

But his reaction to the ammo tax really caught my attention. Regular shooters already pay a ton for a case of shells. How about an extra .25 per round for the General Fund? We could fix a lot of potholes with that sort of unexpected cash flow. Or, just a flat 10% sales tax adder, sort of like how gasoline has an extra cost. What a windfall that would be the next time the rage machine ramps up guns and ammo prices like they did when President Obama was in office! Say it will pay for police training and mental health services, so it’s just a targeted fee. Taxing ammunition shouldn’t run into nearly the interference a gun tax could.

When proposing a gun tax, something like 25% for every firearm sale could be a good starting point. Since we’re taxing the sale, how about all sales must be registered. This is almost exactly the buying or selling a car model, and every state manages to tax and register them quite efficiently. Heck you could even do it on an app, just a picture of both persons ID, the weapon, it’s serial number, and the bill of sale. Easy as buying a pizza, and probably easier than the new kiosks at McDonalds. Throw in a few minutes to do a fast trace on the gun, purchaser ID check and “presto”, hit pay on the sales tax and get a PDF of the registration, suitable for framing.

Sounds reasonable enough, and that could pay for a lot of police training. Maybe make an extra 25% for any “high powered” weapon — something more powerful than the average hunter would use could be a good criteria here and would be aimed straight at the AR 15 buyers. Oh and, a handgun fee. Because long arms do have some legitimate use while handguns really are just for pointing at people, defensively or otherwise.

Here’s the magic in these sorts of taxes. No government anywhere ever gives up a good revenue stream. In fact, once they find a good one to tap, it will grow over time, guaranteed. Some political scientist somewhere probably has a name for this affect, but for guns it goes back to raising the price so the demand goes down. It will never be repealed once in place.

Remember how the conservatives were going to repeal Obamacare for over a decade? They ran against it hard, but never did repeal it. Taxing guns and ammo will get the same treatment, but they’ll never repeal it. And maybe, over time, the smoking gun will fade away, just like all those smoking sections that used be a fact of life.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/5/21/2170577/-Sin-Tax-for-Guns-Might-work

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