Archive | April, 2012

Taxpayer News

30 Apr

Hey all you taxpayers, hope you have recovered from paying your property taxes. That which does not kill you, yadda, yadda.  

Here are a couple of news items that might be of interest to any hardworking person who feels they are taxed enough already:

Tomorrow night,  May 1,  I hope some folks will come to the regular City Council meeting  to protest the “telecommunications tax” being pushed onto the November ballot by your reliable and rapacious city $taff.  $taff wants to reinstitute a Utility Tax on your phone bill, but they need two-thirds approval from the voters. I hope you will come down tomorrow night for a reading of the ordinance they intend to place on the ballot, and take a walk up to the public podium to voice your absolute disgust with this obvious g-snatch.

Gosh, in my Pollyanna mind, I fantasize about a council who would say, “Oh, really? You feel that strongly, hmmm – okay, screw this tax,  Power to the People!” Let’s try it and see! 

Next Sunday,  May 6,  Chico Taxpayers Association meeting at the Chico library – 11:30 am.  We’ll be discussing the latest news regarding not only the Utility Tax but the booze tax and the efforts to raise the local sales tax.  The booze and sales tax increase may not make this November ballot, but I don’t think these effort will be completely abandoned. 

Maybe we should talk about a letter writing effort in regards to the telecommunications tax, both to council members and to the Enterprise Record.  Hope to see you there! 

 

Time to get your Utility Tax Rebate!

18 Apr

Thanks very much to Lynn Thiesen, finance department $taffer, who has graciously placed the Utility Tax rebate information on the city website, and sent me a link to the city website. But I’ll give you the  link to the actual  form: 

http://www.ci.chico.ca.us/documents/UUTRefundPackage.pdf

The second page tells us who qualifies. It’s fairly generous, actually –  a family of four is allowed over $46,000 a year.  I know plenty of you are living on less than that. 

Here’s a tip – take your bills with you, they don’t need copies, they just want to look them over. Yes, I’ve had them add the bills up, and once, the gal even found a charge I had missed! 

Also, take a copy of the first page of your tax return – they want to see that figure at the bottom right – but BLACKEN OUT YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER. No sense being dumb.  They might keep this copy, but they don’t need your SSN. 

The Utility Tax is one of the city’s top three revenues, along with property tax and Transient Occupancy Tax, you know, “bed tax”.  UT brings in millions a year, off your power, water, and if you have it, sewer bills. Thank you God, for septic tanks.   If I was on sewer, I’d call it, a “turd tax.” Just imagine, paying every time you go to the bathroom – GET OUT!

And now they want to re-institute a tax on your phone use. Up until a couple of years ago, the phone companies were collecting UT off your bills, but they found there was no law that really allowed them to do that, so they refused to continue until municipalities all over California rewrote their city code to allow this TAKING. The city of Chico is currently updating their ordinance, but because it’s a TAX INCREASE, it has to go before the voters. 

Wake up Snuffy, that’s YOU! 

They need to get two thirds approval from the voters to get this tax on your phone. You need to ask yourself, “what will I get?” That’s not greedy, it’s called, “survival”. 

The answer is, “nothing.” They want more money, but all we hear from Downtown is lay-offs and cuts to services. They want this money just to pay their pension obligations – YOU WON’T GET ANYTHING! But they will continue to retire at 50 on on 70 – 90 percent of their highest years’ salary, including overtime.  These people will live among us on their $100,000 + pensions, and continue to drive up the cost of everything from housing to gas to meat and eggs. 

Those of you who qualify for this Utility Tax rebate have an opportunity to go Downtown and show them what you think of this TAX INCREASE. 

I’ll be waiting until I get my bill for April usage from PG&E, then I’m going down to the Finance Office and get my money back. Anybody cares to join me, I’ll keep you posted. 

 

 

 

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Tax Day Rally tomorrow at the Plaza

14 Apr

I sent my family’s tax returns in a couple of weeks ago, so I’m ready to party down, Brown.

I like the Chico Tea Party Patriot’s annual Tax Day Rally, it’s very traditional, home town, All-American kind of fun, like the pancake breakfast held every year at One Mile. It’s a time to be glad to be an American, cause no matter how bad things get, we still got America.

Yes, we do.  America is a great country, for so many reasons. We might gripe about our leadership, but we  have to admit, it’s good to live in America.

Americans are independent, they don’t want to be told how to live or what to think or what to do. That doesn’t mean they aren’t there to look out for their neighbor, in good times and bad. But hollering out, “are you okay, do you need assistance?” is a far cry from, “sit down and shut up, I’m here to take over your life and run it for you.” 

Of course, people that independent don’t agree on everything all the time, and that just makes the Tea Party even more American – they are a diverse group, brought together by their belief in the principles that made our country great – you can read about it in the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution.  

So,  tomorrow the organizers generously offered me  a speaking spot  at 12:30  to talk about these taxes and tax increases we have rolling around on the ballot in November. I hope to see a pretty good crowd. I’m still looking for some folks to go to the Finance Office with me and turn in our Utility Tax Rebate forms. 

See you there! 

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Taxing matters

9 Apr

I want to keep reminding everybody – it’s almost time to apply for your Utility Tax rebate.  You will need your bills – PG&E and Cal Water. They also want to see a copy of the first page of your tax returns – I always black out the ssn’s.  The forms should be available by the end of this month on the city website.  If you have any questions, direct them to the following city of Chico e-mail address:

ltheisse@ci.chico.ca.us

or call 879-7300.

I’m not sure about the amounts, but I think a family of four is in at just over $40,000 a year, and so on. I have not seen the requirements lately, because they don’t post this stuff on the city website until the last minute, and as soon as the  deadline comes around, they take it off. I think they should have to post this information all year round, but let’s face it – they don’t want you to know about it. They want to keep YOUR money to pay THEIR salaries. Be sure to tell them, you think this info should be on that website 365 days a year – why isn’t it?

$taff wants your money. They  have already got council to approve an initiative on the November ballot that will re-institute a five percent tax on  your cell phone, and add a five percent tax to your home phone. Show them now what you think of this grab.

I’m hoping for a happy little posse to go down to the city building with me – remember what Arlo Guthrie said at the end of Alice’s Restaurant? Well, I won’t quote, because it would get me another round of “homophobe!” from my creepy peanut gallery. The gist of it was, it’s better to confront the establishment as a group than just one lone harpy. So, let’s get our little mob up and go down there – the excitement might loosen my purse strings, and I might be up to buying the first round at Shuberts! Wooo-woo!

Let’s yak it up some more this weekend at the Tea Party Tax Day Rally – set up for Sunday, April 15, at City Plaza. Again, Wooo-woo!

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Many thanks to Assemblyman Jim Nielsen for speaking to the Chico Taxpayers Association

3 Apr

I’d like to thank Jim Nielsen for taking his Sunday morning to come to Chico and talk to a group of concerned citizens at the library. Mr. Nielsen took our little group seriously, because we’re fighting the good fight. Thanks to everyone who showed up to listen.

We are showing Tom Lando, not to mention other chickenshits who are hiding behind Lando, that there is no support for raising local sales tax outside of their little clique.  Lando apparently has the support of  certain council members on this –  Lori Barker plopped out a paragraph about how taxes get on the ballot – but she didn’t mention ANYTHING about getting signatures on a petition.  So, I’m guessing, if Lando comes forth with an initiative, council would put it on the ballot with a 5 -2 majority.  I bet you can guess who the five would be, and I’m guessing there might even be a 6!

I’d say the only people who would support this idea are the public salary/pension takers and their hangers on.  At last count, we still got them outnumbered, but for how long, nobody knows. This might be the effort that turns that tide, Folks, let’s keep our shoulders to the wheel.

Let’s not forget, they’ve already decided to put the phone tax on the ballot, without a squeak from the public. There’s a tax that will effect everybody – not only would they re-institute the cell phone tax that was rescinded a couple of years ago, they’d add a tax on your land line!

In past it added up to about $4 on my family’s cell phone bill – might sound like chump change to somebody who skims $100,000+ a year off the public, but it’s a gallon of milk or a couple of packs of eggs as far as I’m concerned.  And, mercy, what $4 would buy at Shuberts!

The phone tax is already on the ballot, we have to start making noise about it. We have to remind people, they’d be better off giving the same amount of money to their local school or charity fund.

Giving more money to the city of Chico is like letting out a pair of pants to accommodate obesity.

Now don’t forget – it’s almost time to get your Utility Tax Rebate. If anybody wants to organize a little party to go down there together, I’d be all over that. Let’s start talking about it now.

You realize, they sometimes pay cash, and Shuberts is like two blocks away. I’m getting chocolate covered raisins, maybe some orange sticks…

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