The Blue Blazers being what they are, socio-élitistically, naturally they could not go on long talking about anything as hopelessly prole and plebe as the MBTA. To their credit, they did eventually start a new thread to go on about matters of more importance to the breasts and portfolios of gentle folk.
The point where they ran off the commuter rails is interesting, since the gentlemen who dwell above the clouds, in the shadow of the Palace of Public Television atop the Great Blue Hill, happen to be largely mistaken about the "tax expenditures" abracadabra. And ¡to think most of ’em are, or talk like, H*rv*rds! Tusk, tusk.
It goes like this, starting just after the unwitting derailment:
| The tax expenditure budget is huge and, unlike the general budget, once something gets penciled in the tax expenditure budget… it stays there, unless removed. There is no yearly tax expenditure budget made, it just rolls in from one year to the next. No wonder the itemizations within the tax expenditure budget have become a sacred cow on Beacon Hilll… So it keeps building and building and building, and as Deb keeps pointing out, there’s well over $20 billion in that budget each year now… with no checks and balances, and very little accounting done to see if what”s being spent makes sense. Now, a lot of the items in the tax expenditure budget are things that make sense or would be popular with residents. However, we could easily find a billion or more that isn’t, starting with the Film Tax Credit, which cost about $150 million last year. I simply don’t buy the notion that the state can’t buy back the MBTA debt, and then some. RyansTake @ Sat 10 Mar 5:16 AM |
The Massachusetts Bay Transparency Authority (Paddy jested) has perspicuously explained--that is to say, squirreled away--the Big Swig of "tax expenditure" as follows:
| 3.503 Nontaxation of Certain Services Certain services are not subject to sales tax. This estimate includes a range of services to individuals and businesses which are excluded from taxation by their omission from the statutory definition of services. Origin: M.G.L. c. 64H S. 1 Estimate: $9519 |
Now everybooby who knows who or what a ‘Deb’ may be must know also about the "FY 2013 Consensus Tax Revenue Estimate of $21.950." Goes without saying, that does. At this particular juncture, call it "http://www.mass.gov/bb/h1/fy13h1/exec_13/hbuddevchall.htm," ‘transparency’ lapsed dismally. I mean, ¿Why could not the P-MA have made that $21.950[.000.000.00] as completely illegible as they made its breakdown on the pretty pie chart adjacent?
As things actually fall apart, any ten-year-old with a gadget can work out that those who like to spend the taxpayers’ money vicariously would have a bit over forty-three percent (43%) more of it to play with, if all those field-grade servicers could somehow be reduced to the other ranks. Minus, of course, a certain number who would move off in a huff to some other province where they are better appreciated. ("Governor Scott, Senator Rubio, Governor Christie, permit me to introduce Ebenezer Willardmitt Scrooge XI, another distinguished economic refugee from New Iceland.")
However, ‘transparency’ rallies strongly in the immediate vicinity of "tax expenditures." Not the faintest clue in sight [1] what these élite services are, nor by which élitists provided to whom. The only small chink in the ‘transparency’ is that a high-level breakdown of "tax expenditure" has also deviated into legibility, disproving the notion of one of the Blue Blazers that nontaxation of real estate sales is where the T-E inaction is:
| 3.501 Nontaxation of Transfers of Real Property Real estate is exempt from sales tax but is subject to a deeds excise at a rate of 0.456% of the taxable price of the property (0.342% in Barnstable County). The estimate represents revenues that would be collected under the sales tax if sales of real property were taxed at 6.25%. Comment: Revenues collected under the Deeds Excise Tax (including Secretary State Deeds) were $137.7 million in Fiscal Year 2010 and $140.2 million in Fiscal Year 2011. Origin: General exclusion of real property transactions Estimate: $1998 |
Hmmm. "There once was a salt from Cape Cod / Who complained of the tax on his sod / When he marched up to Boston / ’Bout what it was costin’ / . . . ." [2]
Be that as it may, once one has dredged up the $1998 and set it beside the $9519, poor unmasked Mlle. Transparence can only shriek and flee that neck of the woods, mostly likely to the stately _château_ of her elder sister, Mlle. de la Main Invisible.
Happy days.
--JHM
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[1] Clues made available only in the special jargon of the shyster community do not count. Though Paddy would sure hate to have missed the following fun read
| [ There is no paragraph (bb).] (( Exempt from sales tax are )) (cc) meals prepared by employees thereof and served in any hospital, sanatorium, convalescent or nursing home, or boarding home for the aged licensed under section seventy-one of chapter one hundred and eleven or in any institution or private house licensed under section twenty-nine of chapter nineteen; meals prepared by the members thereof and served on its premises by any church or synagogue or by any church or synagogue organization to any organization of such church or synagogue the proceeds of which are to be used for religious or charitable purposes; meals served to a resident in a facility providing continuing care to an individual which facility must provide a disclosure statement to a prospective resident as required by section seventy-six of chapter ninety-three; meals served on the premises of an organization which is located within the boundaries of a Massachusetts army or air national guard base that serves as social club for members of the Massachusetts army or air national guard; meals served in an assisted living residence certified pursuant to the provisions of chapter nineteen D; meals furnished by any person while transporting passengers for hire by air to or from any place within the commonwealth, meals furnished to any organization in which membership is limited to persons sixty years of age or over or to elderly or handicapped persons residing in a housing project qualifying under section thirty-eight to forty, inclusive, of chapter one hundred and twenty-one B and said organization has previously filed with the commissioner, on a form approved by the commissioner, satisfactory proof of its eligibility hereunder; and meals furnished to students by an educational institution which normally maintains a regular faculty and curriculum and normally has a regularly enrolled body of pupils or students in attendance at the place where its educational activities are regularly carried on; and meals served by summer camps for children eighteen years of age or under or developmentally disabled individuals; provided, however, that such summer camp which offers its facilities off-season to individuals sixty years of age or over for a period not to exceed thirty days in any calendar year shall not lose its exemption hereunder; and meals furnished through programs established under section one L of chapter fifteen. |
But seriously, that mysterious "M.G.L. c. 64H S. 1" is but a fishy red herring. Section 1 of Chapter 64H of the General Laws is called ‘Definitions’ and lives up to its billing. ‘Transparency’ is impaired a little, I suppose, insofar as the inclusion of such _definienda_ as "Mobile telecommunications service" or "Motion picture" probably indicates that there is a corresponding rathole around somewhere. But the service-providing rats certainly do not collect their nine-billion-buck porkulus *here*. ’Tis hard not to think that with that wild-goose reference the P-MA transparency-mongers have passed over from _suggestio falsi_ to flat-out _suppressio veri_.
On the other hand, ¿Que sçay-je?
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[2] I assume that Transparency for Dummies, or whatever the canonical textbook may be, recommends this ploy of throwing in a little essentially irrelevant detail to further flummox Televisionland and the electorate.
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