By Thomas Knapp, on August 4th, 2010
As I write this, with 3,035 of 3,354 precincts reporting, Missouri’s voters support “Proposition C” to the tune of 72.7%. Here’s the full text, but the upshot is in the ballot description:
Shall the Missouri Statutes be amended to:
* Deny the government authority to penalize citizens for refusing to purchase private health insurance or infringe upon the right to offer or accept direct payment for lawful healthcare services?
* Modify laws regarding the liquidation of certain domestic insurance companies?
Not sure what the full story is on the insurance thing.
For months, the mainstream media has been howling about the expenses of “the lawsuit” that Proposition C would entail … but I don’t see how it entails a lawsuit at all, unless the feds sue Missouri’s government.
Missouri’s government doesn’t have to sue, it just has to enforce its own law, e.g. arrest and jail any IRS thugs who show up trying to collect fines from uninsured taxpayers, make sure Missouri employers know not to honor any garnishment/withholding orders pursuant to those fines, freeze federal assets in Missouri banks if necessary to make Missouri taxpayers whole for federal theft of assets pursuant to the fines, etc.
Looks like Missouri’s voters are sporting some big, hairy balls tonight.
And yes, junkie that I am, I voted today, swearing up and down that this was the last time (it only encourages them). I keep trying to break the habit, but I really did want to be part of this nullification vote.
By Ajay Shah, on August 4th, 2010
For many years, India has been in a slow processes of evolving towards a dual centre-state GST. The rough picture is one with two
distinct but harmonised taxes, which have an integrated IT system so as to sharply reduce compliance costs. A key dimension is that of properly integrating domestic taxation with international trade in goods and services, by zero-rating exports (thus exempting
non-residents) and by charging the GST upon imports (thus taxing the full consumption of residents).
This process has faced two challenges: politics and administration. On the political side, the puzzle lies in having
enough states sign up into a system where all taxes other than the GST are abolished, and where firms face an integrated nationwide
administration. This would enable a unified Indian common market. Things seem to be going badly on that front.
The administrative challenge is one of project management. The Indian policy landscape contains many important ideas where the
political hurdles have been crossed, but where execution has been lacking.
Today there is news of a concete project management strategy for the GST: see this story by Surabhi Agarwal in the Mint. So while there might be many failures on the political side of the GST, atleast we now know that there will be some coherent project management which will yield a working GST system within a year or two.
The idea of bringing NSDL into this problem is not new. Ever since the Tax Information Network (TIN) was built by NSDL for the income tax department, it was well understood that handling of VAT credits is much like handling of TDS. In 2004, the Task
Force on Implementation of the FRBM Act, chaired by Vijay Kelkar, had said in the executive summary: “Hence, the Task
Force recommends that the existing TIN and OLTAS systems, developed by CBDT, should be used for the implementation of the GST, both at the Centre and at States.” We wasted a lot of time in getting to this destination, but while the wheels grind slow, they have
ground true. When NSE and NSDL came about in the early 1990s, we had little idea about the far-reaching consequences of what was coming together.
By B.P.T., on August 4th, 2010
The Mortgage Bankers’ purchase index was released at 7:00 AM EDT, and there was a week to week increase of 2.0% in the Purchase Index and a week to week decrease of 5.9% in the Refinance Index as the housing market showed a slight improvement for the second week in a row from the weakness shown since the second financial stimulus program for home sales came to a close at the end of April.
The Challenger Job-Cut Report was released at 7:30 AM EDT, and it showed that there were 41,676 layoffs in July, which is about 2,000 more than the number of layoffs that were reported in June.
At 8:15 AM EDT, the ADP Employment Report will be released. Investors will be watching this number to get advance notice on the state of the job market in advance of the government’s report on Friday.
At 10:00 AM EDT, the ISM non-manufacturing index for July will be released. The consensus estimate is that it decreased 0.8 points last month to a value of 53.0, but will continue to signal economic growth as it remains well above the mid-point of 50.
At 10:30 AM EDT, the weekly Energy Information Administration Petroleum Status Report will be released, giving investors an update on oil inventories in the United States.
At 4:00 PM EDT, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner will give a speech on fiscal policy and tax policy in Washington DC.
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