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In Italy, They're Now Taxing Shadows
As Greece struggles to convince the world it’s serious about adopting a series of reforms designed to bolster its economy including cracking down on rampant tax evasion, the Syriza government may want to look to Italy for creative ideas on how to boost government revenue. As Italian newspaper Leggo reports, store owners in Conegliano are now faced with the unfortunate (albeit comically absurd) proposition of paying taxes on shadows.
The rationale appears to go something like this: an awning casts a shadow on public property and therefore you must pay to use that property. Here’s more:
Via Google Translate:
CONEGLIANO - is another incoming wave of taxes for merchants Conegliano that this time they have to pay the tax "on the shadow."
At first glance it might seem a joke, but it's one of those imposts hidden (but then not so) in the folds of the Italian rules. If a store or a bar has an awning outside the shadowing on public property, must pay a fee that is part of the public land use, tax on employment of public land. While employment is obviously only virtual. "It's absurd - says Mathias Doimo, owner of the grocery store" La Dispensa "via Vital -. We will pay for this too, but not really talk about it. It's a shame.
Mathias, 31, has taken over the shop in 2008. Outside, to protect the window from the sun so that the foodstuffs are not directly exposed to light, has installed a curtain of four square meters. A few days ago he received from Abaco, the company that manages the tax on behalf of the City, the payment request. The tax is charged at EUR 8.40 per square meter and the fee is calculated based on the area of ??the tent. In his case the tent is 4 square meters, and has to pay 33.6 euro that comes with various rounding to 34 euro.
The best thing about this policy (if you’re the government) is that taken to its logical extreme, you could charge everyone a fee on sunny days as unless you’re a vampire, you probably are using public land by casting a shadow. We would also note that this gives new meaning to the term "shadow banking."
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Welcome feudalism...
Same (insanity) as a pool tax.
If I was a victim of this tax I'd call the news media and go on over to the city hall and stab the mutherfucker who passed this law in the eye.
You could then all Biblical on his ass and ask him to look for the blade in his own eye.
Italy is a fucking cesspool
The extra body hair clogs the drain.
Just pay the damn shadow tax and be glad you're still casting one!
this is one of those taxes they will talk about centuries hence as an example of how fucked the world was at this point. Like how we sometimes hear stories about 14th century people becoming convicts for breaking laws like 'whistling on a tuesday' or somesuch...
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-09-24/some-dumbest-taxes-throughout-h...
I guess its only a matter of time before they tax some folks for casting shadows on public property as they go about their day. Gotta pay for what you use.
Is there a tax credit for rainy days?
Rainy days can cause tax problems, in Maryland if not in Italy.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/maryland-senate-unanimou...
I especially love this topic.
But back in the United Kingdom, the government taxes you on entertainment even if you stay home through its television tax.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfHRhXW1hno.
Violence solves nothing.
But sense government produces nothing, and is nothing. Well?!
The banksters need to repay us.
"Please operate all guillotines in a non-violent manner."
Careful, kchrisc, you are getting close to politician logic there.
Here's the problem - "It's absurd - says Mathias Doimo, owner of the grocery store" La Dispensa "via Vital -. We will pay for this too, but not really talk about it. It's a shame"
If people told them to fuck off then there would be no tax, problem solved.
"...stab the mutherfucker who passed this law..."
No doubt this is not a law, just an ordinance created by some unaccountable bureaucrat at City Hall who cannot, under any circumstance, ever be fired.
Ever hear the expression, "don't fight City Hall?"
Sadly, it's true.
If you get skin cancer go sue the government.
Welcome feudalism? Even feudalism wasn't this f*cked up.
Wait wait wait.
The shade is fighting global warming. The owners of the shades should be PAID, not taxed!
Another 'interesting' consequence of – ahem – shadow banking?
Worst tax since Leyman...
Ohh, 'pray tell'... No moar Dolce & Gabbana umbrellas?
As a young "Junior Spaulding", I found it rather curious being the only lifeform without fur when treking about.
I'm even more convinced that Earth was seeded with hairless monkeys carrying the late George Carlins' DNA.
Could explain why Asians can't grow a beard.
Don't you date an asian chick?
Listen Lola, it's over between us.
I'm crying in my beer, beard anger.
Rand: "beard anger"... LOL! Where the fuck did you pull that one from? I've never heard that in all my years. Still laughing and just shit myself. Gotta run...
Yen you crazy fucker. I have an idea. For every idiocy or tax .gov comes up with, each "person" should instantly submit an invoice for performing a service to the idiot .gov in the form of DOUBLE the amount of each tax. As a private contractor, I don't do a fucking thing unless I get paid. And I certainly don't do anything for .gov's benefit.
Think it will work? lol...
"should instantly submit an invoice for performing a service to the idiot .gov in the form of DOUBLE the amount of each tax."
All of my invoices will demand payment in heads.
The banksters need to repay us.
The head is the payment, and the torso is the receipt of payment.
kchrisc: I always hope you get your wish and enjoy your posts. Save me a ring-side seat. I'll introduce myself, but believe it or not, I don't look like my avatar.
Don't forget to laugh along the way.
Cheers - Angus
Look for me. I'll be that guy organizing and running the guillotines.
"Banksters to the head of the line."
The banksters need to repay us.
Cheers - K. Chris C.
My guillotine and I are going to make a killing in banking and governmnet.
Don't forget me? That worthless poaching MDB is first on my chopping block.
Then I'm going after the all the little pricks that use Z/H to hedge their bets, and act like they're fooling us.
Hey, Max, you've been reincarnated.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximilien_Robespierre
Here's hoping you learned from your mistakes in '94.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/64/Execution_de_Ro...
Angus, I'm pragmatic in 1966.
I enjoy getting people to think for themselves. An unused human brain is a travesty.
Angus you're the best, and a good friend :-D
Yen: angus@hush.com - Certified by various artists, rogues, and scoundrels on this website.
No worries, I separate the junk from the valid on that addy.
Thanks Angus. angus@hush.com duly noted.
You're probably going to get bombarded by a bunch of jihadis & 12th stage cancer survivors for posting your email on Z/H.
I made that mistake once. I'll shoot ya an email tomorrow morning. Cheers ;-)
If they were congruent, they would tax the area of the shadow. How will taxing the area of the curtain hold up under cross-examination in court when the shadow that is actually taxed is smaller? The only logical conclusion is that there will be no cross-examination because those in power answer to no one and know no consequences for their actions.
So what if they install artificial lighting under the curtain to shine light onto the pavement? Why, a light-pollution tax, of course!
The shadow varies in size hour by hour, day by day, so we need to calculate the average area of the shadow throughout the year. We will of course have to charge a 100 euro annual fee for shadow area assessments. On the bright side, this will help employ university educated mathematicians to measure shadows hourly throughout the year to ensure the tax is correct.
I watched as a group of suburbs of middle to upper middle class people to the west of Chicago allowed ordinances supposedly targeting "light pollution" to be rammed thru. One of my clients that lived in one of the so targeted burbs even yammered on, Kool-Aide dripping from mouth, about the "effects of light pollution," yada, yada yada. She thought I was nuts for suggesting that it might be a disguised tax, and backdoor for warrantless searches of her and her neighbor's properties.
So once it was in place, bam! Out come the fines, penalties, and the "ordinance checks." A homeowner would come home to a notice of fines and penalties for "light pollution," but also tickets and notices for unregistered autos, uncut grass, stop-work orders, unlicensed pools, etc.
One poor homeowner was thug-raided because an inspector had seen UV lights over plants in the barn. It was the man and his wife's medicinal herb grow. The thugs ticketed the operation for not having the proper zoning or business licenses.
The towns are now also demanding the expensive changing out of certain lighting technologies, etc. for others.
LOL Who's nuts now?! I would bet that she is still hearing my refrain of, "Always about money, power, and division," that she so vehemently disagreed with.
The banksters need to repay us.
It is not that I am right and you are wrong, but that you are not thinking.
Italy is the new Greece. There is no way that it can pay off its debts. But bureaucrats will come up with ever more ridiculous taxes before the system implodes.
We're all Greek, we just don't know it. Here's something to think about,
Greek public debt per person is 24k
German public debt per person is 34k
How much does that come out to per oligarch? I'll bet it's close to net worth.
US debt and unfunded liabilities are about $1,270,000 per taxpayer and rising at $70,000 per year.
Don't take my word for it - here is Richard W. Fisher of the Dallas Fed on May 28, 2008 - please note that numbers have risen substantially since 2008:
Please sit tight while I walk you through the math of Medicare. As you may know, the program comes in three parts: Medicare Part A, which covers hospital stays; Medicare B, which covers doctor visits; and Medicare D, the drug benefit that went into effect just 29 months ago. The infinite-horizon present discounted value of the unfunded liability for Medicare A is $34.4 trillion. The unfunded liability of Medicare B is an additional $34 trillion. The shortfall for Medicare D adds another $17.2 trillion. The total? If you wanted to cover the unfunded liability of all three programs today, you would be stuck with an $85.6 trillion bill. That is more than six times as large as the bill for Social Security. It is more than six times the annual output of the entire U.S. economy.
Add together the unfunded liabilities from Medicare and Social Security, and it comes to $99.2 trillion over the infinite horizon
With a total population of 304 million, from infants to the elderly, the per-person payment to the federal treasury would come to $330,000. This comes to $1.3 million per family of four—over 25 times the average household’s income.
http://www.dallasfed.org/news/speeches/fisher/2008/fs080528.cfm
Please note that unfunded liabilities have increased by about $55 trillion since he gave that speech. US debt has gone up $8 trillion since that speech. So a family of four in the US now owes $2 million if it wants to pay off its share of debt and unfunded liabilities.
Wake me when people start talking about how much is owed back by the people who stole it. ZH has well covered the fact that a few hundred people own more wealth than half of the American population. The unfunded liabilities are unfunded in large part because the bankers and oligarchs took the funds.
I think you're on the same page LTER?
With all due respect J/O, You're pumping some figures that imply you're in the industry, or privy to the numbers.
Don't get me started on compound interest.
No, all these data are freely available. Some are much higher - like $222 trillion in December 2012. So about $242 trillion today - 50% higher than Fisher's numbers:
Economist Laurence Kotlikoff: U.S. $222 Trillion in DebtDecember 1, 2012
http://www.realclearpolicy.com/blog/2012/12/01/economist_laurence_kotlik...
1,270,000 per taxpayer and rising...
****
'Tis only a flesh wound!! Come back 'ere 'n' fight, 'e coward!!
****
odious debt.
I didn't sign shit for this debt and I've paid more than most - so fuck all and let it burn!
Thanks for the links. Good reading material over the w/e.
If, in fact your calculations are correct, we're royally screwed much sooner than my calculations suggest.
Sounds like I am being punished for remaining healthy, until you realize most of this expense comes from bullshit drugs to keep the pharma industry obscenely rich. What kind of deranged society pours the majority of their GDP into a group of alchemists who claim they can keep them young?
We should call unfunded liabilities what they really are, which is unfunded government promises. Politicians can promise you whatever they want, Good luck collecting.
If you are a Corporation or a State government, you are required by law to account for unfunded liabilities. Only the Federal government gets a pass on this requirement.
If you are a bank, you just mark to fantasy and problem solved. It's all related.
How is it getting a pass? By printing and devaluing currency. That's pass the buck. Corps go bankrupt when they have unfunded liabilies.
Like JPM, Goldman, Citi, etc?
You're a lawyer with absolutely no clue about economics. much like the politcians running the country, I can't wait for your socialist utopia to collapse. Your best hope will be to sue the gov for damages.
You're right. JPM, Goldman and Citi did not go bankrupt because they were well capitalized. I must have no idea what I'm talking about. Thanks for correcting me. And I thought we were done, bearded banger. You know you've hit a chord when the beard starts defending the banks.
The Fed is capitalizing your socialist failure in order to keep the gov solvent. But you're too dumb to understand that. Soon you can kiss your gov pension goodbye, lola. You're going to have to go back to working as a hoe.
Yes, the private Fed is trying to give me more money. Right.
Registered agents and LLC's ? ;-)
JO Very nice find!
It goes well with my find ( http://www.ssa.gov/oact/trsum/ posted as a comment to another article showing SS needs $77 billion annually as FICA does not bring in enough for the program to be self funding. I guess we should not be surprised but it is scarey knowing how close we are to the end of this silliness.
Lets see now, Greece wants to enlist tourists as Grecian tax revenuers (lol), Italy wants to tax shadows (is sunshine next?), the EU in general wants to add hookers & blow to their GDP (you've got to pomp it op!) and France wants to fine anorexic models and throw their agents in jail.
I'm seein a definite pattern here, they're broke.
They should both pass a tax on total square inches of leg hair for their women, and back hair for their men.
You forgot to mention taxing CO2. The gas that most animals exhale with respiration, including humans.
The banksters need to repay us.
If pigs could take up arms, there would be less bacon.
I won't be a pork belly for Zion.
Italy has a HORRIBLY anti-entrepreneur culture. The only place in the EU that is more anti-entrepreneur than Italy is Greece, which is even MUCH WORSE.
Unless you have actually gone to these countries and tried to start and run a small business there, you cannot even imagine, much less believe, how impossibly difficult the communist parasitic labor unions and hyper corrupt government make it to succeed.
The ONLY way that entrepreneurs in these countries can prevail is to evade the oppression by any means that they can invent, it is a daily desperate struggle.
I spent some time in Italy recently, and found quite a few small businessmen who had incorporated in Singapore or (I seem to recall) Malta in order to circumvent the absurd laws now in effect in their own country.
And here I though shadows were helping to combat global warming.......
you will pay to leave the country or take your money from the banks next. Oh, wait...
What do you expect when the NWO wants all your cash?
China Is Buying Up Italy One Company At A Time
Russian, Italian Defense Industry Reps Discuss Military Technology Deals At IDEX 2015
Italy’s Finmeccanica Enters Partnership With Russia’s Rosneft For Helicopters
Gazprom Still Paying Italy’s Saipem For South Stream Work
Gazprom Signs €350 Million Loan With Italy’s Sanpaolo €390 million With UniCredit
And, here we all were thinking that those US imposed "Sanctions" would have "permanently isolated Russia" by now.
Obviously time for more sanctions. Maybe even a ripe time for that great US export - "Regime Change"?? After all the Russian military are "bankrupt, demoralised, and poorly supplied" per the likes of the WSJ and WaPo. http://i.ytimg.com/vi/_Ue6evEKbeM/hqdefault.jpg
Wonder how long before the US "Volunteer Army" decides that going AWOL might be a better long-term plan than going toe-to-toe with a very highly-motivated opponent, on the opponent's home ground . . . .
All governments aspire from their first cry of "we" to control thought and speech. That is because all governments are nothing more than criminal syndicates of violence backed theft--grifters.
The taxing of shadows is nothing more than a glaring example of this. Soon to follow, the torture and caging in the government's shadowy basements of dissidents against such a tax on shadows.
The banksters need to repay us.
HAMLET
Then are our beggars bodies, and our monarchs and outstretched heroes the beggars' shadows. Shall we to th' court? For by my fay, I cannot reason.
Shadow government, shadow banking, shadow taxes. Stands to reason.
Just tint the windows.
In Philly,the pirates came around with new info that fees for my store window signs were on sale -"Pizza Joint" 350$ "Pizza By The Slice" 250$ -store menu 100$ -thats right! A tax on window signage ,of course to improve safety and sales at my store! Thats what they actually have the balls to inform me -in writing.
"The court declareth that the porter who ate his bread at the smoke of the roast, hath civilly paid the cook with the sound of his money."
(from La vie de Gargantua et de Pantagruel)
"Declare those pennies on your eyes"
The Beatles would have been proud.
This is not really a "new" law. Taxes on the shadow cast by balconies have been in effect since the early 80s. Merchants would have to pay a tax in the first place for the right to have an awning. Paying a tax on the shadow the awning casts, is merely an extension of already existing legislation.
Recently, news that merchants have been demanding cash payments in Italy has made the rounds on the internet. I grew up in Italy in the 60s and 70s and this has always been the case. Italy is much farther advanced in aberrant fiscality than all other Western countries. Already in the 70s citizens had to bend over backward to comply with highly complex and very often contradictory rules. Only in Italy do you find a profession called "Commercialista". This is the person that follows the evolution of tax laws and is the only person that can do your taxes. The commercialista however, takes no responsiblity for any errors committed in the filing.
In one particularly aberrant case around 1995, the new tax form was a 75 page book that had been published late and the commercialisti had not had time to go through it. That was a fun time to flie taxes in italy.
The rest of the West is merely catching up to what Italians have already been inured to for at least the past 40 years.
It seems to me that when Empires crumble (the Roman Empire, the Athenian Empire etc) the power evaporates but the bureaucracy persists for millenia.
They spent a lot of time forming those habits..."I don't want to lose my place in the breadline. What's all that noise over in the Goth quarter about?"
There are several places down the street where I live in the states that's cash only and a 3% discount for aiding and abetting dodging of the Visa mafia is de rigeur.
PIIGS
Coming soon to a location near you: taxes on electricity production from solar panels and wind turbines equal to the taxes you would otherwise pay on power from the local grid.
So do you get refund/payments for putting up mirrors instead of awnings?
The proposition is not a bad one if the shopkeeper can also charge the government for any overshadowing caused to his property by a court house, police station or hospital.
Also, will there be credits for cloudy days or days when there are eclipses?
Or will they tax God for any shadows cast by his clouds?
There will be surtaxes when the shadow covers more than your awning would have.
It's Italy. Why you surprise.
I'm nota soprise. I just gota no money to paya. Va fangool.
It looka like Moosolini still aliva.
Is the actually tax on the shadow or on the use of the sidewalk under the canopy?
If one pays a tax to use the sidewalk, could one use it for anything else as well, such as keeping crates or freezers on it?
Or am i wrong and the tax is actually on the shadow?
I believe the tax scales according to the surface area covered by the shadow...well it's an integration really from dawn to sunset dTheta.
(but seriously, it's on the "improvement" to the establishment,
but it's really dinging them twice since they'll get hit by increasing sales taxes anyway)
The guy is using land that is not in his property and has to pay a few Euro rent for that. What is the big deal about it? Just because property is owned by the public/ the state doesn´t mean everybody can use it at will for free. What is that, Zerohegde now promoting socialism?
How is casting a shadow using property?
Clearly you have not been privileged to sit under an awning and the exposure to the sun has resulted in you posting a comment not befitting a thinking human being.
Einstein's theorem of stupidity being unlimited has been proven conclusively.
If you use the public property to produce the shadow on your private property your are using the public property. You don´t need to be an Einstein to realize this, but some here on Zerohedge some are so brain-dead they don´t get this simple fact.
In this vein of thought, can i sue the public for casting an unwanted shadow on my property?
No everywhere on Earth we see this as NOT using public property because shadows don't do anything to it or with it or on behalf of a person - you fucking idiot.
in maryland we have a "rain tax" all the states rain that falls on your property is to be taxed - as you pollute the pure rain with your dirty soil. the democrats here are up in arms that this tax is called a Rain tax by the serfs of the state, NO they say, it's an antipollution tax to save our bay!! this tax was a brain child of a democrat pol who was govenor of md, now running for president..if he wins expect a federal rain tax to follow.
Say his name.
Martin O'Malley
Keep your eye on this very special Peice of shit.
This is not an Italian Joke . The owner of a fruit an vegy shop told me how the Italian Finance Gestapo ( Finance police ) go about determining how much tax a shop should pay . They measure the area of the surface where the shop does its business and then suggest a sum to be paid annually . This system has nothing to do with how much product has been sold . As a result of this idiotic system the majority of small business pays up to 68 % in taxes every year . Many shops have closed down and unemployement is over 20 % . The Istat ( Government statistics ) tells lies to the public about the real percentage of unemployement . They rig the stats too like in the USA . Many thousands of business have closed down in the last few years due to the recession and enormous taxation . That results is that Government revenues from business has gone down . Now local governments have to invent new taxes to stay afloat.
Since 2009 the PIL has gone down by over 10 %
http://it.tradingeconomics.com/italy/gdp
If you use the public space in front of your shop to sell goods you have to pay rent for that. If you don´t use that public space you don´t pay rent. It´s as easy as that. And that´s true everywhere in Europe, not only in Italy.
hey wolf, do the shops pay income and sales taxes?? that is not enough to you?
What do taxes have to do with renting space to do business? Most shopkeepers pay rent to privat landlords for their shops, what is the diffrence if they rent space from the public?
You mean pay twice? Already tax is paid every year and that tax is the rent, to use public land.
And this leaves Umbrella's where, soon to be taxed? Perhaps double for Parasoles...
When that fractional reserve system you helped to preserve that made you what you are falls hopelessly into disarray and you go stark raving lunatic mad in the process! When reality mimics the "Onion" you know you're fucked!!
By the way...
This ends well for those who impose such taxes!!!
Tax bufunga!
Simple solution: do away with "public property."
Total is total bullshit. This assumes that the government somehow has a legal claim to sunlight. What?!?