End the War on Freedom

FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED JULY 17, 2001
THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz
And he's taxing the stairway to heaven ...

State and local governments are rolling in money these days. Witness the decisions -- just within the past week -- by the Clark County Commission to start new County Manager Thom Reilly at $160,000 per year (he was making $74,000 in his last job, as a starving college professor), and by Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn to shrug and say, "What the heck, the head of the Department of Motor Vehicles wants $173,000 a year instead of $103,000? Give it to him -- it's only tax money."

The combination of a booming economy and confiscatory tax rates have combined to saddle governments everywhere with the kind of problem politicians love -- finding ever more black holes into which they can shovel the embarrassing surpluses that otherwise keep piling up in excess of inflation and population growth, combined.

In this context, one wonders why the taxmen would continue to seek out new things to tax. But in the end, that's like asking why the scorpion stung the frog -- it was just in his nature.

When Popeye the Sailorman came ashore at Sweethaven, he wanted to ask a question about all the port and docking fees he was being required to pay. The response was that he was welcome to ask his question -- as soon as he paid the question tax.

This year's Sweethaven award must surely go to Los Angeles County Assessor Rick Auerbach, who was shocked -- shocked! -- to learn that Hughes Electronics of El Segundo, Calif. owns hundreds of millions of dollars worth of property on which it's not paying the county any property tax.

"Reaching 22,300 miles above the equator," reported staff writer Nancy Vogel of the Los Angeles Times this week, "boldly going where no tax collector has gone before ... Auerbach is angling to impose property taxes on several satellites.

"Though never done before in California, the move is legal, say state and county tax attorneys. That's because, they say, nobody else is taxing the satellites. ..."

One might want to take a moment to savor that logic. If it's legal and appropriate to tax something just because no one else is taxing it, does that mean it's OK to steal a car from a dealership as long as no one else has bought it yet? To rape a woman as long as she's a virgin?

The eight satellites, launched from either Cape Canaveral or French Guyana, serve a multitude of functions, from beaming HBO movies into American homes to speeding up credit card processing for motorists who pay at unmanned gas pumps. And they "could bring in millions of dollars a year in taxes to schools and government," the Times goes on.

Fortunately, it appears the aerospace giant may not take this lying down. Brian Paperny, Hughes vice president of taxes (another moment of silence, please, in sober contemplation of the fact that such a post is now necessary), described the company's executives as "very concerned with the concept of a tax being assessed on a stationary object 22,300 miles away from the Earth, which is residing in a fixed parking slot ... over the equator, far, far away from Los Angeles County and the borders of California."

Auerbach responds that satellites are no different from other movable personal property that he has authority to tax -- like boats, construction equipment and ice skating costumes.

(Yes, in a 1976 case, a judge determined that the property of the Los Angeles-based Ice Capades could indeed be taxed by Los Angeles County, even though it spent most of the year "on the road," as it were.)

"The property in question here is geostationary," protests Larry Hoenig, a San Francisco attorney representing Hughes Electronics. "Geostationary satellites sit above the equator in a fixed position; they do not rotate around the Earth. So the satellites we're talking about here are not movable property."

A somewhat dangerous distinction, surely. Shall counties begin to tax aircraft as they fly overhead? Might they even collect liquor taxes on cocktails poured at 30,000 feet?

For that matter, don't a number of churches still preach that by doing good deeds, their parishioners are piling up "treasure in heaven"? Whether or not said treasure is technically located in this "heaven" place, couldn't it still be said to fall under the "ownership and control" of the local churchgoers?

There are precedents for "presumptive assessments," when property is not conveniently available for inspection. (Surely no one expects Mr. Auerbach to have access to the locale in question.) Couldn't Mr. Auerbach thus set a presumed value on all that loot, giving parishioners 30 days to show cause why their "treasure in heaven" is worth less than estimated? Doesn't he, in fact, have a fiduciary duty to do so?

Mr. Auerbach insists he's duty bound to tax the satellites. "I've read the opinions," he said, "and it's pretty clear in my mind that it's taxable."

He does admit one likely outcome, however: "I do believe this will eventually end up in the courts."

Ah, yes. The "lawyer tax."

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Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Subscribe to his monthly newsletter by sending $72 to Privacy Alert, 561 Keystone Ave., Suite 684, Reno, NV 89503 -- or dialing 775-348-8591. His book, "Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the Freedom Movement, 1993-1998," is available at 1-800-244-2224.

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Vin Suprynowicz, vin@lvrj.com

"When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong. The minority are right." -- Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926)

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Mencken

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