TAXES - FAIR & UNFAIR, DUMB & DUMBER

I guess I’m just stupid. I don’t get it. Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson wants to tax garbage to raise $13 million a year. Then he wants to tax non-profits to raise $5 million a year.

 

But residents already pay taxes to have their garbage picked up. Non-profits don’t any pay taxes. Seems to be a contradiction right there. Don’t you go after those that don’t pay taxes rather than those that do?

 

But there’s more.

 

Most Cleveland residents are not doing that well. Many of them you would call low income. Non-profits may be having some money problems but there’s plenty of money there.

 

Example: The Cleveland Clinic, likely the biggest of non-profits, had $3.4 BILLION in revenues in 2007, latest IRS report available.

 

Example: University Hospitals had net assets of nearly a billion, $994-million, in 2001, latest I could find.

 

Example: Cleveland Museum of Art has net assets of $873 million.

 

Example: Cleveland Foundation – assets of $1.49 billion.

 

Example: Gund Foundation – Assets of more than a half of billion dollars.

 

So from these behemoths you’d get $5 million a year but from working and unemployed stiffs you’d get $13 million? And you know the $9.25 garbage monthly fee will soon be $12, then $15 and then more.

 

So from the big money institutions you want $5 million but from people, who already pay plenty in income and property taxes, you want $13 million a year.

 

Doesn’t sound right. Not to me. Not to anyone with any sense.

What sounds even more ridiculous is this. The city would tax the Cleveland Museum of Art and the County gives the Cleveland Museum of Art $1.5 million in 2008 from the Culture & Arts fund from the cigarette tax.

 

Do we tax Playhouse Square, a non-profit that also gets subsidies from the County and got more than $1.5 million in 2008 from the County’s Culture and Arts fund, via a tax on cigarettes from the County?

 

Do you tax the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, a non-profit? The Rock Hall got $880,000 from the Arts & Culture 2008 fund.

 

Do you give with one hand and take back with the other?

 

And then there’s this. Do you tax the tax exempt property users? They don’t pay taxes.

 

Would there be the tax on Progressive Field, on Q Arena, Browns Stadium? If not, why not? Shouldn’t they chip in?

 

It seems as though the plans for clipping people for chump change that hurts little guys but doesn’t much damage the big ones hasn’t been thought out and doesn’t make sense.

 

Go back to the drawing board, Mr. Mayor.