Next Up, A Tax On Thingy

Are you Governor of a state that is having some, how shall we put this, financial difficulties? Well, look no further for the answer to your problems! Follow the lead of the great State of Kansas and implement a stamp tax on illegal narcotics!

Kansas is already reaping the benefits of the tax with revenue on marijuana increasing by 3.6% and on the harder drugs, like cocaine and speed revenue was up by 20.6%! Not too bad for collections in a stagnant economy! (source for the statistics)

</sarcasm>

I don't know how I really feel about this. On the one hand, the drugs are illegal, society has voiced its desire to eradicate them, and this is potentially a very powerful tool in that quest. But on the other hand, I get concerned with just how powerful this could be. And it seems like the controls against abuse are somewhat inadequate:

The drug dealer has 15 days from the date of assessment to request a hearing before the Director of Taxation to determine the validity of the assessment pursuant to K.S.A. 79-5205. The assessment is statutorily presumed to be valid and correctly determined. The burden is on the taxpayer to prove otherwise. (emphasis mine)

They continue on to say that the outcome of a criminal case will not necessarily have any bearing on the tax question.

That's just not right. It should be incumbent on the state to prove any of its accusations, not for the citizen to exonerate himself at a higher standard than the accusation, which is what we have with the burden being on the taxpayer to "prove otherwise" the accusation of the state. All it would take is an overzealous revenue officer slinging around accusations.... Now many people would argue "but there are safeguards to ensure that doesn't happen."

How many of you look forward to any question from the IRS? How about the Department of Children and Families? They have safeguards against civil servants abuse their position. So why are people afraid of them?

Because they know that one nutjob can ruin their life. They know that with either of those organizations the deck is stacked against them from the get-go.

Or maybe it's because both organizations (and the Kansas DOR in this case) are statist organizations that operate in complete opposition to the American ideal of innocent until proven guilty.

But, hey, being a weed dealer is almost becoming respectable. Now you can get insurance on your plants (in some cases, obviously). Kind of doubt it protects against confiscation by the Department of Revenue though.

Every day, Monty Python looks more and more like a prophecy instead of sketch comedy. Better start organizing the protests for tax free thingy...