Puerto Rican Roulette

The idea has the appeal of greed on both sides. We, as consumers, get a chance to win maybe $1,000 a week in a lottery. The government, taking asswipery to a new low, try to force businesses to report their sales in order to collect the sales tax, known locally as IVU, as in "I violate u."

Enter the IVU-Lottery, or IVU-Loto as it is called. Every customer is now expected to request a receipt with a unique serial number, in order to participate in two weekly drawings of $1,000 each, or after the government takes its cut, about $620.

Not bad money, right? Just for buying stuff? The usual stuff you usually buy? So why, Oh Jenius, is this such a bad idea? In fact, Jenius, you say it's one of the worst ideas from a government that practically perfected the stupid idea factory?

It's a dumbfuck stupid idea because the reward system is wrong: it doesn't reward the customer for forcing the retailer to conform to the law, instead, every week, it punishes all but 2 customers in exchange for the government increasing imposition of a numbnuts tax that doesn't work.

First, a sales tax of 7% was too high to begin with and instead of making the collection of government monies easier and larger, it did the opposite. That was clear to bright minds long before The Jellyfish and his cabal in both major parties rammed the buttplug up Our descending colon. Not only was the tax too high--3-4% would have been better, if at all--but the whole reporting process was so hideously complex and asinine that it cost the government more than triple its expected implementation and management cost...for less revenue.

Second, because the tax was stupid, too high and too complex to deal with easily, it forced businesses to bypass it altogether and opt for a gray market approach. So the stated purpose of "tapping into the underground economy" went unfulfilled and it actually did the opposite: it helped make the underground economy more fertile.

Now the asshats We elected want Us to play the numbers so they can get more money and piss it away like the retarded VD-infested monkeys that they are...and We'll end up paying more for it. 

Ya don't think? Here, take a ponder on this one: what do you think stores that already report IVU will do when their competition has to spend money to become part of the program? Think it through. I pointed out years ago that the IVU would raise prices by about 13-14% and the statistics bore Me out to a penny. Will the situation change just because it's three years later? Uh-uh. Stores that already report IVU will marginally raise prices because the cost of compliance by some (about 35%) of their competitors will be passed on to the customer. It's simple business economics: if I have to pay more to provide goods and services, I pass on the costs to My customers or I close up shop.

And that means that the IVU Loto will place upward pressure on prices that only 2 customers a week will benefit from, while the rest of Us lose another percentage point or two to unneeded inflation.

Woo. And hoo.

What will the underground economy do? Think it through. If the gray market knows it has the advantage of a cash-based economy, with the customer holding the trump card of "I can report you," do you think prices will rise or fall in that economy? Exactly. Now where will you go to buy those "gray market optional" items, which have now increased beyond "flea market junk" to fresh fruit and vegetables, new clothing, electronics, eyewear and even appliances?

Right. You'll go where your dollar has greater buying power, not where your dollar gives you less than a 1-in-a-million chance of winning a few dollars...to be taxed.

Once again, the IVU Loto is another boon to the underground economy and its effects will be noticeable within weeks, not months. How will We know? When flea markets expand in size and numbers.

Were there better options? Damn right there were, but what can you expect from retarded VD-infested monkeys other than screeching, scratching and stealing? Here are two options that would have been better-suited to the government's uncontrollable lust to get and thus waste more of Our cash:

1) Drop the sales tax to 4%. It might seem counter-intuitive, but hundreds of economic studies across decades and frontiers have shown that when consumption-based taxes are reduced, consumption--and tax collection--goes up. For one, the 3% difference means customers can get (by demand and competitive pressure) "instant savings," and nothing spurs consumption that the feeling of getting a sweet deal. Just as the underground economy, for Pete's sake.

2) Switch collection to quarterly. Once again, the hassle of complying with the idiotic tax every month needs to be assuaged in order to make it easier to comply and manage. To the monkeys and their monkey-groupies who say that revenue needs to be collected monthly for proper collection, I have two words for you: April 15th. Once a year, and it works (somewhat) okay. Plenty of business and corporate taxes are paid/collected quarterly and with one "free" month in the three-month period, enforcement can take a higher priority.

But no, since these ideas require the R.V.D.I.M.s to (a) drop "their" percentage and (b) reduce "their" control, they will avoid the ideas like cowards flee from dignity. They are and they do. In their disease-ravaged minds, it is better to have Us all play a version of economic Puerto Rican Roulette and increasingly risk suicide than to think things through and do what's right.

So what else is new?



The Jenius Has Spoken.