Sales Tax

[David Love]

Well, I think that pretty much captures my sentiment on the matter.  Maybe
those guys should think about going to work for Ashcroft.  Might be a good
fit.

David Love


----- Original Message -----
From: "Ron Nossaman" <RNossaman@cox.net>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: September 02, 2002 9:45 PM
Subject: Sales Tax


Interesting.

Twenty five years ago, the powers that be in Kansas didn't require sales
tax on labor. Then some genius in the local "blood from turnips" department
woke up, looked around for a guaranteed source of income to support his
no-fault lifestyle, and said "hey"!  Enter the concept of sales tax on
labor. Up to that time, churches were exempt too, but the transcendental
"hey!" epiphany sucked them into the fold, as it were, with the rest of us.
Maybe ten years ago, this same seminal wellspring of genius tax legislation
were visited by the spirits of the "random local tax" one dark and stormy
night just before Christmas. As a result, we were summarily given the
privilege of keeping track of and charging whatever sales tax was in effect
on any given week in any given county of any given state in which any given
one of us happened to have accidentally made a buck during any given month.
Life was interesting for a while there until the bean counters in the
"blood from turnips" department realized that the BS and paperwork involved
in dealing with this -uh- system (even after the bulk of the abuse was
absorbed by the legion small contractors filing the paperwork) not only
drove a lot of small business away from any work out of area, but cost so
much in actual hands-on labor for the collectors of said turnip blood as to
altogether too closely resemble working for a living. This was
insupportable! It was obviously time to simplify to take the workload from
the shoulders of local government, without adversely affecting the
relatively newfound windfall profits. What to do? Near infinite wisdom
wisely dictated the mandate to us all to collect sales tax on all sales and
labor at the current rate at the point of origin of the business. Everyone
loved this one. The paperwork went down drastically for all concerned. The
extractors of blood from turnips went back to their afternoon naps without
having to actually produce documentation (or much of anything else obvious)
for their 33.2 paid days vacation and holidays, retirement plan, sick
leave, medical insurance (with dental), company vehicle, and carte blanche
to destroy the business of nearly anyone they like on their whim. The
contractors, meanwhile, got to spend their afternoons working for pay
instead of generating idiot paperwork for turnip suckers, and the church
lobbyists sat there in a mildly dazed state until finally, one of them
looked around, scratched, and said "hey!". So while the extractors of B
from T were napping and re-figuring their retirement benefits one fine warm
afternoon, the church lobbyists sneaked their old exemption back into the
folder. So we now charge the local rate of sales tax wherever we may do
business, on both parts and labor, except to educational institutions,
dealers for purposes of resale, hospitals or other "non-profit" (right)
organizations, and churches - provided we obtain and keep on file an
official signed tax exemption certificate from each and every one of them
we have ever charged a penny for (tax exempt) service.

But that could change at any time, depending on who's snoring wakes whom up.
Ron N