Tag: Business

As it is, the only reason anyone would stay there is because moving is not an option.

It starts off:

The chamber's Board of Directors decided to back the district's millage proposals Tuesday morning.

"It was the board's consensus that strong schools are an integral component of successful communities -- communities that retain and attract talent, jobs, and investment," Doug Luciani, the chamber's president and CEO, stated in an email to TCAPS officials.

The article which spawned the headline touches on the example of the Traverse City Area Chamber of Commerce, and its support last year of a $100,000,000.00 boondoggle, and even more easily this year's reduced ($47,000,000.00 total) offering.  It supports putting more of a burden on its members and those who bear the increasing liability of property ownership.

taxable properties the school receives funding from has several classifications.

• Agricultural
  
• Commercial
  
• Industrial
  
• Residential
  
• Personal Property Classification from Commercial, Industrial, and Utilities.

Remember those numbers highlighted above.

What an incredible opportunity this 'shutdown' offers us, yet all that they can come up with is self congratulatory political 'twerking'. Rather than applaud a stand for what most republicans profess as their principles, the nerd sycophant unit offers underhanded criticism to the one thing that is going as it should.  Greg McNeilly self proclaimed 'decider' of whom might be an "invasive species", or "Malcontent, magpie", et.. Falls short of identifying the Obama/Reid cabal which has in fact been solely responsible for the shutdown in DC:

"There could not be a stronger contrast between the actions of Gov. Snyder and the House and Senate Republicans and the irresponsibility of Washington, D.C. politicians.  Michigan's responsible leaders balanced the budget months ahead of schedule, put money aside for a rainy day and still ended up with a surplus.

"Gov. Snyder and our leadership in the Legislature have done a tremendous job building a solid foundation for Michigan's economic recovery.  As the state continues to grow, we will count on them to continue the smart, fiscally sound policies that have brought Michigan back."

Gosh Greggie, we are so impressed! And NOBODY not everybody had to pay higher taxes for it! Michigan should be PROUD to have the 47th best climate for business in the country! By Obama's accounting that means we are better than 11 others, but for normal folks a modest 3 is good enough though, right?  What happens I wonder to the wonderful Medicaid/welfare expansion that will not be funded if the GOP is successful in holding the line?  Will the governor be able to pull back enough to get maybe 48th?

Real leadership like this deserves an award.

If it were YOUR business, monopoly, interest, etc..  What would you do?  What would be YOUR actions if the government came gunning for you and your interest in holding on to a business built both legally and with solid business acumen.  That is the point I have made many times before with regard to Moroun and the DIBC.

And Henry Payne makes a decent case for it as well a couple days ago, when he points out the hypocrisy of the media that decries Moroun's efforts:

"Take the Journal. It's the only daily newspaper in the state's capital. What if the governments of Canada, Michigan, and the US ganged up on the LSJ's "monopoly," and decided to publish a government-run newspaper to put the Journal out of business?

You don't have to endorse Moroun's over-the-top, misleading ads - or his ballot proposal - to know that is exactly what the Canadian government is doing to the Ambassador Bridge Company.

In a decades-long war with Moroun, the Canadian government has tried repeatedly to put the Michigan mogul out of business, jealous that a private company is making money on "their" international border crossing. What is dumb-founding is that it has found a Michigan governor and American government to ally with them to destroy a profitable, American business."

For years, the legislature has been reticent on taking action on a new bridge for a few reasons.  Not the least of which has been that very last fact.  The question begged by conservative Republican legislators, is "Why would we hurt an American business to give a benefit to the Canadians?  Short term gain as Payne alludes, is certainly ALL we get out of such a thing, and while there was a Democrat governor, resistance was easy for Republicans.

With the current governor, it suddenly makes it OK? Did Republicans leave their principles at the door when the majority changed?

Any of you who run a business that YOU BUILT, understand what happens when government grows to a point where they can use your tax dollars to abuse you repeatedly.  Crony short term gains by the actions and wishes of this governor, and his waiting-in-the-wings beneficiaries can all too easily be replaced by the long term losses more closely associated with American business failures due to external forces.

No Surprise.

Jack Hoogendyk has an interesting look at something that shows those of us on the conservative side of the fence face opposition from even those who are presumably our friends.  An analysis of contributions apparently reveals we (or at least "Republicans') face roughly complete financial opposition from union interests, and a fence sitting 50% from business interests.

"I did a little research using OpenSecrets.org, the web site that tracks campaign contributions. Here is what I found. No matter how far down the list you look, union PAC's all give donations to Democrats at about a 24 to 1 rate. 96% of all union PAC dollars go to the Democrats. But what about "business" PAC's? This is where it gets interesting.

Of the top 8 business PAC's, 52% of the dollars go to Republicans, 48% goes to Democrats. The union bosses are putting all their eggs in the Democrats' basket. The business groups like to play both sides of the fence."

Hi Dave, Hi Fred, Have you recognized yet, that you have an impossible task?  Have you noticed that "increasing revenues" seems to be impossible? Does it seem hopeless?

It ought to.

Obviously, as two of six members tasked with the overwhelming task of reigning in an upwardly spiraling debt situation, you hold a great deal of responsibility.  And with only 11 days till the collapse of your hopes to accomplish this without crushing business, and raising taxes on those making over a dollar a year, the realization that there is nothing of which you are aware that will solve this problem, must keep you awake at night.

Therein lays the problem.

You both don't know, because you have failed to listen in the last couple of years, as the good folks who have marched, protested, changed the face of the congress you occupy, have told you how.  It is not a part of your understanding.  were you asleep?  You didn't listen to those folks in 2008 when you had an opportunity to say no to the use of taxpayer funds to prop up businesses that needed to fail.  You didn't listen to good Republicans who now mourn the loss of moral authority with regard to improper payoffs to corporate supporters and masters, which BTW has given the current president cover for his own abuse of our treasury.

And you didn't listen when the majority of the country once again said "NO!" to raising the debt ceiling once again in a way that serves only to feed the beast which will ultimately consume us.

As many business owners understand, there is "property tax" and there is "property tax".  And while the two seem to be quite similar, the difference is how one is handled over the other.

Property tax as we all recognize is the repeated taxation on real property (acreage, land, buildings) which is used in a number of different formulas and provides a basis for government funding, millages for special purposes, and has for so many years until recently been a boon for local governments who would rather grow more services, than cut taxes on the increased value added properties.  It is regressive, in that it discourages ownership, and puts at risk those on fixed incomes.  Property tax on real property as it stands is already bad enough, yet has funded state and local government expansion to a point that any contraction in values puts at risk those things necessary and proper.

But "Property Tax", as in PERSONAL Property tax or INDUSTRIAL property tax, is something even more sinister. In 2007, I wrote:

"For some of us, the process is mostly painless financially; A couple of desks, computers, a few inventory racks.. But for quite a few Job creators, it can make a profitable year much less so with equipment that costs hundreds of thousands for manufacturing processes etc..

Again, Michigan needs to re-visit the idea of eliminating these regressive policies which hamstring our ability to be more productive and provide for our OWN families, much less those who feed off of the generosity of Michigan taxpayers through the force of Michigan government. (more to follow on this)"

All equipment bought for use in your business is taxable at the time of purchase.  Then it is taxable when you use it, repeatedly, like real property tax.  It is assessed a little differently, and relies for the most part on voluntary inventory declaration of business assets. (though larger businesses might have a personal visit from an assessor around Dec 31) It creates a level of work for the business owner that can be complicated depending on the quantity of business useable assets.  It also creates a great deal of work for township assessors who must peruse the minutia (if they are doing the job properly) and properly report to the state the value of those assets and amounts collected.

Often it becomes a whole lot of work for very little benefit, if anything at all.