"We've got a shift starting in 36 hours that we've got to charge 6% more on ... and I don't know how to do it."
-John Evans, president of Evans Distribution
Welcome to Michigan, where we somehow seem to be stuck in the Reality TV version of Groundhog Day: Your Government inAction. With just hours remaining before a confusing, unexplained and really random 6% Service Tax goes into effect, everyone who might have to pay the tax is watching the clock and wondering what Lansing will do. Read on for much more...
The Freep's Susan Tompor writes that the new 6% service tax is like one of those bad snowstorms that everybody hoped would skip town. Even the forecasters warned that this thing couldn't last long. This oddly crafted tax on services -- 6% on nails but not hair; 6% on ski lift tickets but not golf -- is so dopey that most expected it ultimately had to be repealed.
Over on Michigan Liberal the editor of a major Michigan web site spars with a long-dead Michigan governor over the much-hatedness of the Service Tax.
An article on the Service Tax Impasse the Detroit News looks at business owners preparing for the tax and also at the state of diplomacy in Lansing:
On Detroit talk radio, House Speaker Andy Dillon, D-Redford Township, and Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, R-Rochester, pointed fingers at each other for the negotiations breakdown Wednesday over the service tax. The House passed its own plan and then adjourned until Tuesday.
Bishop called "garbage" a House-passed bill that the Senate rejected Wednesday night and chided: "We don't want to let the facts get in the way of the speaker."
Dillon shot back that the so-called "garbage" is backed by a large share of the business community.
Meanwhile, over at the Michigan Treasury, they have posted a disorganized jumble of information about the tax at the top of their page that includes an explanation of services taxed.
Find much more about this issue at 6% of x? Untangling Michigan's Service Tax on Absolute Michigan.
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