New York Governor Elliot Spitzer has proposed a new tax – on illegal drugs! ” That seems to be the axiom in New York these days, where Gov. Eliot L. Spitzer (D), struggling to close a $4.4 billion budget gap, has proposed making drug dealers pay tax on their stashes of illegal drugs. The new tax would apply to cocaine, heroin and marijuana, and could be paid with pre-bought “tax stamps” affixed to the bags of dope,” according to the Washington Post.
This seems like a wacky idea to me. I wonder if Spitzer was smoking something when he came up with this? He also endorsed Hillary Clinton. Spitzer must have been shooting up when he did that!
Apparently some states actually have a law like this on the books. “Most states with the law sell stamps that drug dealers can buy in advance, like what Spitzer is proposing. Because no drug dealers are known to buy the stamps and pay their tax in advance, the tax is usually levied after they are caught.”
These laws generally have “to allow anyone to buy the stamps without showing identification or alerting authorities that he or she is a drug dealer.”
So why are some states resorting to this tax gimmickry? “In the current anti-tax environment, politicians in states such as New York are reluctant to raise taxes more on average taxpayers, and prefer to cover budget shortfalls through what experts call “sin taxes,” on products such as cigarettes and alcohol, or on activities such as visiting strip clubs. Texas, for example, recently introduced a levy on strip clubs known as “the pole tax.””
A pole tax? “Strippers, like drug dealers, normally are not known to complain about more taxes. “I guess they didn’t expect the drug dealers of New York to rise up and join the anti-tax movement,” Aubry said.” I think the strippers should have gotten behind Ron Paul for President!
Illicit drug stamps are not new and have been available for some time from various government agencies.
The pole tax is intended to be paid, the drug stamps are as well, after convictions, from the various form of properties confiscated. Remember Al Capone went to prison for tax evasion!
One story http://www.druglibrary.org/olsen/dpf/stamps-001.html of how the government has become the robber-barons here, all in the name of making the country a better place to live.
Here are some webpages about the stamps
http://www.flyingbuffalo.com/stamps.htm
http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=6670