well, i'd drafted a longer reponce, but lost it:( I'm out of my legue
on these issues (as are most payers likely). The whole area is burdened
with way to much history which possibly leads to many of the problems
we have. I think the 1% thing the result of frustration as much as any-
thing else. but..
>But I do not agree that a tax is "any funds which go from private to
>public/semi-public orgs". There are several reasons for this. First is
>that these services that are paid for by fees could be done by private
>organizations as well as public ones. For example, in Boise, you do not
>have city water or sewer service. Istead these are provided by private
>companies. You do have to use these services if you live in these areas
>since they have obtained a franchise from the city to provide these services
>(and it would bu much more expensive to duplicate these sevices). In Idaho
I'd still view them as a tax I think. Its maybe a "directed tax" in that
it goes to a specific place, but its still a required payment, one for
which it has been determined by a small group of elected (hopefully) folks
will be payed by a larger group? The francising out to private sector
of these services is done to encourage the private org to even be intrested
in being in business in that area. Possibly because fractionalization of
the service would lead to a non-viable business model, and thus it would
not be possible to out-source w/o it.
The history thing is also relivant. In those kuna sub-divisions, people
still pay their NewYork canal water district fees (i think), even tho
they don't use the water. The fee, allocated on the basis of something
line foot/seconds/acre, is the same for acres under tillage as those
not using the water. If only those that used the water were charged,
it would change cost structure of their agri-business too much. So in
that case, a "tax" which is subsidizing the dwendling agri-base. (could
be wrong on all that:).
but my point was that no matter what the organization which is collecting
the $'s, if the patron is required to pay because of decisions made by
democratically elected people, then its a tax. In the case of the
Kuna water, the decision that these people would be taxed was made when
the water district was formed (by elected officials?).
> ...
> The advantage is that in the city we
> have a fixed geographic base and can achieve econonmies of scale that
> private providers outside the city cannot. Also, we do not have to pay
> shareholders or investors so we can deliver services at cost. Another way
> of looking at it is that the city residents become the shareholders of the
> company and, instead of paying dividends, we give lower rates.
its the francise thing mentioned above mixed with a cost/benifit analysis
by the elected officials which led to the above situation. Possibly the
governmental unit couldn't get any private org to do it at the break
even point of the governmental unit doing it themselves? But I'd still
view it as lower "taxes" rather than lower "rates", because of the
involvement of the governmental unit in the making of the decision.
> Second, you may not be aware that, by law, the proceeds of a
> city-owned enterprise may not be used for public purposes but must be used
> only for payment of the operations of that enterprise. The only exception
> is that the city may charge a franchise fee to the city-owned enterprise in
> the same way it would charge a fee to a private company. The purpose of
> this fee is to compensate the city for the use of city rights-of-way or
> facilities. Also, by law, the city may not use property taxes to fund the
> operations of an enterprise fund.
Nope, not aware of it till now (likely, again most folks aren't really
aware of it?). Seems like a way that the elected folks who need to be
held accountable for the "tax" level have defined away the need to call
a tax-a-tax, rather call it a fee. If its going to the provision of a
service which has been outsourced (either to the private sector or to
another governmental entity), then lets not call it a tax, but rather
a fee, and just to make sure we know the difference, we won't allow the
two to be intermingled. If such an enterprise were to become wildly
profitable, under this scheme, the fee would become negative (as in the
case of Alaska oil?) and people would make $ from the service which they
could then use to pay their taxes (of course they'd be taxed additionally
for the income:).
in a nutshell, my feeling is that its WAY to complicated a system we've
evolved to. The 1% thing is a sledghammer approach to forcing rationalization.
not a good way to resolve it, but it certainly has gotten attention.
johnt
Associate Professor
Dept. of Ag. Economics & Rural Soc.
University of Idaho
Moscow, ID 83843
http://www.uidaho.edu/~scooke/onepercent
208-885-7170 (phone)
208-885-5759 (fax)