Jackson Jambalaya

Good Job, Kingfish !!!

I'll betcha Charlie Mitchell knows more about taxation than Donna Ladd knows about mammography and breast cancer.

Do we really care about taxing newspapers???!!!! What is your issue here?

the issue is hypocrisy, which most of us recognize when we see it (the deluded probably won't).

Was it Ben Franklin who said:

"Don't tax you,
Don't tax me;
Tax the fellow
behind the tree"?

Well, Charlie Mitchell, you pay my shipping and handling and I'll pay the sales tax!

I just think if he wants to raise our taxes and get rid of exemptions he should lead the way and demand the state remove his.

Kingfish,

Do you think it is a good idea to remove the exemptions for e-commerce?

Do you think it is a good idea to remove the exemptions for newspapers?

Apples and Oranges.

I would say yes to the former and no to the latter. And so would many other people that have no stake in the newspaper business.

I think you are a little too eager to take a cheap shot at Charlie. He wrote a good article. Come on, you are better than this.

Cheap shot?

I'm dead serious. I'm tired of the newspapers always wanting to raise taxes on everyone else. They never favor tax cuts and claim there is no spending to cut, its ALWAYS taxes.

Well, they SHOULD lead by example. They want to start removing sale tax exemptions, fine, lets start by removing their own.

10% flat tax on income does it. its race, income, class neutral. but thats too easy. maybe after everything is good and broken we can start doing things the logical way

It amazes me that columns deemed worthy of comment aren't deemed worthy of reading. There was no advocacy of making collection of sales tax on internet purchases universal. The point of the article was that while legislatures might like to tax e-commerce, Congress holds the key and isn't interested. As for the exemption of newspapers and other periodicals in Mississippi, the papers receive no benefit, just as druggists don't benefit from the exemption of prescription meds or grocery stores for the exemption of food purchased with food stamps. Sales taxes are pass-through taxes. Newspapers are exempt because they're cheap and this state like most others decided it would cost too much to try to collect, not as a favor to the printed press. Oh, and it's "The Vicksburg Post. "Evening" and "Sunday" were dropped from the name 14 years ago. Charlie

1. I am fully aware of the name change but I still refer to it as such because I just plain prefer to do so. It was a perfectly good name and nothing to be ashamed of.

2. No one said your column wasn't worthy of reading. If I thought it wasn't, I wouldn't have even mentioned it.

3. I am aware sales tax are pass through and that the cost of a sales tax is passed on to a customer. However, the same argument can be made for an internet sales tax. My position is if newspapers are going to lobby for or heavily report in favor of implementing an internet sales tax then I think its fair to remove their exemption even if its just pennies per paper or there are ease of collection issues.

4. Maybe you didn't advocate it but it sure seemed that way since you went out of your way to point out how much money Mississippi was losing on sales tax revenue and what such a tax possibly could do for state finances. That was not just a column about Congress holding the keys but an effort to lobby the public to push for changes in the law so that Mississippi's budget crisis could be eased. I'm not the only one who read it that way either.