All of this complaining by righties about taxes is hilarious. Where were you when your hero was raising taxes, oops I mean user fees?
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WHEN is a ''revenue increase'' not a ''tax increase?'' That is the multibillion-dollar question that has sparked a heated debate in recent weeks between the Reagan Administration and Congress.
The White House, taking a firm public stance against new taxes but leaving room for revenue increases in the 1988 budget, insists the distinction is fundamental. Congressional Democrats, meanwhile, charge the Reagan Administration with doublespeaking and quibbling over semantics.
President Reagan has repeatedly warned Congress of his opposition to any new taxes, but some White House aides have been trying to figure out a way of endorsing a tax bill that could be called something else.
Administration officials have repeatedly suggested that Congress look to the revenue proposals contained in the President's own 1988 budget plan for ideas.
Most frequently mentioned are ''user fees,'' which Administration officials insist are not taxes.
Joseph A. Pechman, a leading tax authority and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, thinks there can be a distinction. A user fee - such as the admission fee to national parks - is, he said, ''imposed on individuals who use certain services provided by the Government and is proportional to the use of the service.'' By contrast, he defines a tax as a ''mandatory assessment on an individual family based on certain characteristics, such as income or consumption.''
But Mr. Pechman adds that a user fee is sometimes not very different from an ''excise tax,'' which is a tax imposed on particular commodities, such as gasoline, cigarettes and alcohol.
Indeed, it could be questioned whether some of the Reagan proposals that are now classified as user fees might fairly be lumped into the category of excise taxes. One such proposal is a new $1 fee on each airline and cruise ship ticket for international travel to and from the United States. That fee would be similar to the Federal excise tax now assessed on airline tickets.
Rarely mentioned by Administration officials are a few proposals in the Reagan budget plan that are specifically identified as ''tax'' proposals.
One of them would increase the excise tax on coal producers. Another would repeal the exemptions from gasoline and other highway excise taxes for bus operators and state and local governments.
Still another proposal would require employers to start paying the Social Security payroll tax on all cash tips received by waiters and other service employees, a change that would increase taxes for restaurateurs and others.
But the idea of making income tax changes to raise revenue is nothing new - even during the Reagan Administration. Such changes were incorporated in the tax increase bills passed by Congress and signed by President Reagan in 1982 and 1984. Politicians are able to get around calling them tax increases by describing their action as closing ''loopholes.'' Closing loopholes connotes fixing an unintended technical gap in the law that allows some taxpayers to unfairly gain a deduction or other tax benefit.
Here's another:
"It would be a user fee."
Reagan explaining that his proposed
five-cent-a-gallon gasoline tax would not
be a Tax at all."
11/11/1982
Tax Reform