Don’t expect the candidates to divulge new tax sources

In the months ahead, we’ll be subjected to endless promises by politicians detailing all they things they want to do for us.

Let us never forget they’re already using our money — lots of it. Keeping those promises means they’ll be looking for a lot more.

While they may avoid the obvious things that really tick us off, like bumping up income taxes, property taxes or sales taxes, they also have more subtle ways to slip a hand into our wallets.

It’s the hidden taxes tucked into a thousand-page legislative bill that hurt just as much as the taxes we know about. Import duties, user fees, excise taxes all have the same old result: your money in the government’s pocket.

So far, they haven’t found a way to tax us for the food we grow in our gardens, the products and services we barter and trade or the slightly-used goods we buy at neighborhood garage sales.

You may remember that big hoo-hah a couple of months ago when two presidential candidates suggested the feds stopped collecting gas taxes for the summer. Turns out it would have saved the average driver a total of $28 and only if the price at the pump actually dropped.

At least our state’s gas tax (36 cents to the state, 18.4 cents to the feds) is not the highest in the nation. That honor falls to New York, Connecticut and California.

We do, however, pay significant “sin taxes.”

Cigarette smokers here pay $20.25 per cartoon plus sales tax, close to the highest in the nation.

Drink anything containing alcohol and you’ll feel the tax burn all the way down: Beer, 26 cents per gallon, table wine, 87 cents per gallon and liquor, $19.43 a gallon.

You would think that those of us whose strongest drink is Coke or Pepsi are tax-free in that category. But wait, there’s a $1 per gallon tax on the syrup used to make carbonated beverages.

And, those who produce soft drinks in a can or a plastic bottle pay a state “litter” tax. That’s because those containers and 13 other categories of products (including newspapers) are believed to contribute to our state’s litter problem.

If you bought a wood-burning stove to reduce your high heating bills, you (or the seller) paid $30, a user tax on solid fuel burning devices. Our state says this money is used to educate consumers about the effects of wood smoke on air pollution and to enforce burning restrictions.

New tires? Pay $1 per tire in state taxes. Unless, of course, you are buying on behalf of the federal government. Those folks just collect taxes; they’re not into paying.

Congress is the grand master of slipping hidden taxes in on all kinds of products and services we use on a regular basis.

If your new bicycle, cotton hammock, telephone, table linens or even that jar of peanut butter was imported, the price was jacked up to cover federal import taxes. Many other goods also make that list.

An airline ticket includes these taxes and fees:: 7.5 percent taxes, $3 for each segment of the flight plus a $2.50 security charge on each segment. To that, you can add the $15 per bag luggage fee because the airlines can no more deal with the high price of gas than we can. Surcharges for fuel may come next.

Check out your cell phone bill. Mine has $4.64 in taxes, fees and surcharges, including 86 cents to help T-Mobile “comply with all these government mandates, programs and obligations.”

Time to buy or make your own cloth, reusable shopping bags for the grocery store. There’s a new 122 percent tax on plastic bags that big and small stores could pass along shortly, at about 3 cents per plastic bag.

And on and on it goes.

For decades, the federal government has taxed workers, in advance, for Social Security benefits, including Medicare, that they might live long enough to collect.

Those who are collecting can expect another increase in “user fees” for Medicare Part B next year. That fund is in such distress that Congress can no longer delay action. Options on the table include raising taxes, cutting programs, cutting payments to physicians, or all of the above. Deadline to act is June 30.

The cost of doing almost anything just punched the elevator’s button to the penthouse where rising fuel prices are ensconced.

Our elected state and federal representatives most often look for new sources of revenue instead of ways to cut rampant overspending and pork barrel slop.

The fantasy that they just want to tax the rich and leave the rest of us alone is just that — fantasy. My friend Chuck, a retired truck driver from Missouri, just sent me an e-mail with this message: “Stop organized crime. Don’t re-elect anyone.”

That may be a little harsh, but I get his point. So when they talk about what they’re going to do for us, let’s ask: How much will it cost and what exactly will those tax dollars buy? What will you cut from the budget to make room for these new programs?

To do less is to hand those folks an open checkbook and a wallet full of credit cards.

Linda Bryant Smith writes about life as a senior citizen and the issues that concern, annoy and often irritate the heck out of her now that she lives in a world where nothing is ever truly fixed but her income. You can e-mail her at ljbryantsmith@yahoo.com.