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April 08, 2005
User Fees
The city of Charleston, WV implemented a "User Fee" last year. The $1-per-week fee is charged to anyone who works in the city of Charleston, supposedly to pay for road repairs, police services, etc.
Since the user fee went into effect, I've been mildly annoyed. Sure, $1 isn't much, and even the accumulated $52 per year isn't likely to make me go broke any time soon, but I'm being taxed by the city government of a city in which I don't live and can't vote. Still, it's less than the price of a comic book every two weeks, so it's not worth getting worked up over.
I heard on the news this morning, though, that the State Supreme Court is expected to rule on the legality of the fee. A lawyer who was arguing that it was illegal explained why. The "taxation without representation" argument struck a chord with me. The argument that the tax is illegal because everyone pays the same amount did not. You see, if every Charleston worker pays the exact same amount, then the poor are spending a higher percentage of their income to pay this tax, and it's an unfair burden on them.
I wonder if he'd be making the same argument against a progressive tax, which places an unfair burden on those who earn more than minimum wage?
Posted by Robin S. at April 8, 2005 05:02 PM
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