See: Is Washington's tax exemption on bullion a gold mine?
Gov. Chris Gregoire repeatedly has singled out the bullion tax break since she ran for her first term in 2004 as an example of the sort of preferential treatment that ought to end.
The governor followed through this year, proposing to start taxing bullion sales as part of her budget proposal to the Legislature. State-employee unions, interested in staving off job cuts, have come out in support.
The State-employees unions are the most powerful lobbies in the state of Washington. They have the Democrats by the short hairs. What they want, they get.
Unfortunately, the real world will not cooperate as slavishly as the Democrats and their State-employee union puppet-masters would like.
The association estimates there are now at least 100 coin and bullion dealers in the state — small coin shops and larger dealers who also sell gold as an investment for retirement accounts. Their businesses would be in jeopardy if the state reinstitutes the sales tax, Robinson said.
As an added blow, national coin-dealer trade shows no longer would consider meeting in Washington.
Because the price of gold is set like a stock on a national market, dealers operate on only a 1 to 3 percent markup, said Karen Feldman, who owns Tacoma Mall Blvd Coin Stamp & Jewelry.
Gold is selling at more than $1,000 an ounce, so if Washington dealers had to tack on a sales tax of nearly 10 percent, it would add about $100 to the price of a 1-ounce gold Krugerrand, Feldman said. Customers simply would buy gold on the Internet or in Oregon and Idaho, which don't tax bullion sales.
A tax on precious metal trades in Washington State would just move the transactions somewhere else. It is a predictable result. The Democrats are just too possessed by greed to give a tinker's damn.
HT: Fenway Nation
See Comment in Do You Deserve To Have Your 401k And Your IRA Confiscated?
Thanks for the hat-tip Syrah. Between this, the IRA and 401(k) confiscation they're discussing, the soaring defeicit undercutting the value of the dollar by the minute and keeping interest rates on s 'safe' investment insturments like Savings Bonds, MMAs or Certificates of Deposit at 2% APY or muchless, it's hard not to feel like what little money one has is under seige constantly....
ReplyDelete