Hi. This is Johnny Paymore here and I’d like to share an important idea. Taxes are good and people should enjoy paying them.

In fact, we need more taxes.

The problem with taxes right now in New Jersey is that it seems like in order to deal with a budget crisis, our political leaders are trying to see which one group should bear the burden.  Currently, as I write this, some government officials have tossed about the idea of imposing a Draconian 5% gross sales tax on small businesses in the state.

Many small-business owners whom I personally know are terrified of it and are seriously afraid they might go out of business if this comes to be.  Furthermore, they feel like that they are being singled out to bear the tax burden in New Jersey simply because they are small businesses and don’t have a powerful union to protect them and currently are not that organized as a voting block.

They were further disturbed to hear at least one government officials say that this new tax should become “part of” doing business in New Jersey.

On the other hand, I know many hard-working people who are afraid that their pensions are going to be the target of public outrage because of the perception that pensions are the cause of many of our budget problems.

It seems that a major challenge in our state is how to fix the budget and preserve the pension system without unfairly putting the tax burden on any one group. The solution should be rather easy—we must create new taxes and find new things to tax so that every one shares the burden!

Here are some of the new taxes that I, Johnny Paymore, suggest to resolve the budget crisis: 

1) A tax on people with no income;

2) A 20% gross pension tax;

3) A flat $200,000 tax on all developers doing business in New Jersey;

4) A new 5% projected income tax to be paid by all corporations to the state;

5) A 7% tourist tax;

6) A tax on taxes. 

Here are the details:

1) A tax on people with no income. Just because they have no income, doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have to pay taxes.  This is long overdue. We can figure out how much taxes people would owe if they did make money and then assign them to community service to pay the taxes they would have owed.

We can say it’s “part of” being a person with no income in New Jersey.

2) A 20% gross pension tax on all pensions.  The money would go right back into the pension fund to help preserve it. Certainly no one should object to that. Furthermore, we might wish to establish an additional 50% ‘take-back’ pension tax for anyone who tries to take pension money out of New Jersey and retire to another state with our taxpayer’s money!

We can say it’s “part of” the way pensions are done in New Jersey.

3) A flat $200,000 tax on all developers doing business in New Jersey.  From what I have been told, developers make so much money they can’t even keep track of it, anyhow. Certainly a couple of hundred thousand dollars shouldn’t bother them if it helps to balance the budget.

We can say it’s “part of” being a developer in New Jersey.

     4) A new 5% projected income tax to be paid by all corporations to the state. The state would project what the corporations’ gross profits would be for the next five years.  Then all corporations would have to pay a projected 5% tax this year in addition to any real taxes in the future. To implement this, we would hire a small army of bureaucrats to sit in a basement in Trenton and figure out how much money the corporations should owe.

We can say it’s “part of” being a corporation in New Jersey.

      5) A 7% tourist tax. All tourists will be given a tourist card when entering the state.  Whenever making a purchase they would give the card along with their payment and a 7% tax will come up added to the bill along with any other sales tax.

We can say it’s “part of” being a tourist in New Jersey.

6) A tax on taxes.  This would be known as the gross, gross tax. After everyone figures out what taxes they owe, they would add an additional 10% to those taxes. 

We can say it’s “part of” paying taxes in New Jersey.

Also, just to be to fair, one more tax. A 1% gross sales tax on small businesses, which won’t put them out of businesses but, in addition to the other taxes, should help to relieve our problems. Furthermore, small businesses shouldn’t object to a 1% tax if other people are paying more taxes as well. That would certainly balance out the ‘fairness’ factor.

(On a serious note, some of our political leaders seem to believe that a 5% gross profits tax on small businesses is okay because they have implemented one in the state of New Mexico.  There’s only one problem with comparing New Jersey to New Mexico.  Property taxes in New Mexico are much cheaper than they are in New Jersey. So please let’s not compare New Jersey to New Mexico unless we are really going to make an in-depth comparison on all levels.)

Furthermore, I think I know why some people cringe when they hear the words “a tax.”  Repeat it several times and it almost sounds like you are saying the word “attacks.” For small businesses, the idea that they alone might have to pay a new tax certainly might seem like an attack on their very existence.

So if there really is no other choice than to raise some kind of new taxes to help  balance our budget, let’s be as fair as we can and spread them out so that everyone pays a little bit more. That way nobody is unfairly under attack and our state can still go on and prosper and grow. 

In the meantime, I hope we all make more and pay less.

Yours humbly, Johnny Paymore.