Taxes and Nerds

The second thing we cannot escape, now looms its ugly head again. Yes taxes, they are a rising. Why would a Nerd care about taxes? Unfortunately, there are now having the “never run a business and made payroll” elites running Maryland. They know we must raise more money to support illegal foreigners living in Maryland with valid drivers licenses. Can you tell that I am hot about this? Taxing and spending just assuages the elites guilt for having high incomes and a good life. They feel less guilty by spending tax money on what they label as the poor. This is the Hugo Chavez strategy to gain power by buying poor votes. I wish that I were set for retirement so that I could give some of my time to helping those less fortunate than I. Unfortunately, I am just paying my bills by working two jobs.

In July computer services will have sales tax added. The sales tax jumped from 5% to 6% but that is not enough. The state wants to tax all services so they are starting by picking on Nerds! Since Nerds are socially and politically inept, everyone picks on Nerds. The first service to be taxed will be computer repair services. This is a way for the state to shoehorn in taxes on all services

Also the cost of being in business in Maryland will rise from $300 a year to $1,000 a year. So much for the success stories of people starting a business on a shoestring. This means that computer service prices will rise by 10% because not only do we have to collect and pay the sales tax but we must spend time performing sales tax collection and payment. When PCs on which we older people depend are fixed, this sales tax will severely impact us with lower incomes.

With computer prices still declining, I can see where it will be cheaper to buy a new computer than to fix it. This is going to cause me to close up my PC repair business. Then what will happen is that any kid with a PC and an A+ certification will begin fixing PCs on the side and not pay the tax. Such kids are not likely to declare the computer repair service revenue as income as well because it will not be a measurable revenue stream for the state. How is the state going to track a few thousand dollars of income from a 100,000 kids? Also such under the radar computer repair services are not likely to do a good job. Alternatively, I could change to strategic lifestyle planning and training services and just stop all computer repair services.

It is just plain bad thinking for any government to believe that higher taxes grow revenues. More people working and making money in small businesses grows revenues. More people working means more people buying homes and moving to Maryland. Lower taxes promotes this and higher taxes does not.

The second tax increase was the tax on my home. It is now $450 per month and is proposed rise over the next three years to over $500 per month based upon the value of my home. Unfortunately, when the assessment was performed, home prices were at their peak. Today they have declined. The state assessors estimated my home's value at easily $11,000 higher than Zillow.com estimates its value. So I printed the Zillow.com value estimate and sent it in as a assessment protest. In reality the $11,000 is likely low. The real value in this declining market may be closer to twice that. The jury is still out on this.

When taxes rise and Nerds are picked upon, they protest. But being a politically and socially inept Nerd may make this a fruitless protest.