Why The Knee-Jerk Over Entertainment Tax Reform?

It is as humorous as it is disturbing to watch some entertainment businesses knee-jerk about a tax reform proposal in the North Carolina General Assembly to eliminate a 3% gross receipts tax on admissions and substitute a regular sales tax instead.

Entertainment/Admission businesses like sports teams and theater owners/operators are an important segment in the tourism sector and I have many friends there (tourism is not an industry but a sector involving 6 or 7 different industries including entertainment.)

I know some who are cringing but in silence at this embarrassing public knee-jerk over something that will actually be to their advantage.

Entertainment/Admission businesses, by the way, have never been shy about proposing taxes on customers of other kinds of businesses to pay for their facilities.

But many are notorious for threatening seppuku (ritual suicide) if they themselves are asked to collect a “user” tax from the actual patrons who use their facilities.

Yes, that’s extremely hypocritical and some of these same folks stood by while others spread fear and misunderstanding among Durham restaurateurs a few years ago by purposely fueling the misperception that a proposed prepared food tax would be a gross receipts tax.  Of course, it isn’t. 

That makes it even more puzzling then that they are now insisting a tax that is in fact a gross receipts tax is preferable to a sales tax.

To my advantage, I was well schooled in the 1970s by business leaders in another city, where I learned that a gross receipts tax is one of the most damaging taxes to which any business can be subjected when one was levied to fund a short-term mega-project there.

Here is the difference between a gross receipts tax and a sales tax:

A gross receipts tax is a tax levied on the total gross revenues of a business, regardless of source.  It is levied on the SELLER, not the buyer.

A sales tax is a consumption tax, not a tax on the business itself.  It is charged at the point of purchase and merely collected from the buyer by the seller who remits it to the governing agency to fund services used by both.

Sales tax has been proven in studies to be associated with economic growth, gross receipts tax has been associated with cascading or pyramiding that isn’t good for growth (read links above.)

The move by the North Carolina General Assembly is a no-brainer and these businesses should stop whining and direct any influence to how the resulting revenues will be deployed.  On second thought, if they think it the status quo is so great, maybe the State should just double and triple the “gross receipts” tax on the whiners!  Couldn’t happen to be more worthy bunch!

7 Myths Driving Irrational US Immigration Policy!

Below is a great column by Darrell M. West , a VP at The Brookings Institution, heading the part of the think tank analyzing government issues.  In addition to the 7 myths below, he’s also published a great new 182 pager titled Brain-Gain, Rethinking U.S. Immigration Policy (click here to read a sample.) 

 

7 Myths That Have Clouded The Immigration Debate

By Darrell M. West

The United States is shockingly irrational in the way it handles immigration. Unlike other nations that strategically use immigration to pursue national goals, we lurch from concerns about border security to illegal immigrants to drugs and crime without considering our long-term political and economic priorities.

One of the chief sources of irrationality is the myths that have arisen about immigrants and immigration policy. Befitting a subject that is politically charged, here's where ordinary Americans and policymakers often get it wrong:

Myth No. 1 — Illegal immigrants don't pay taxes. They actually pay a variety of taxes. Because many undocumented workers hold jobs, a large number pay income, Social Security and Medicare taxes, as well as sales taxes when they purchase items in stores and property taxes when they rent or own homes. One study found that they pay $162 billion annually in federal, state and local taxes. Another project found that the average immigrant paid $1,800 more in taxes than government benefits received.

Myth No. 2 — The United States rarely deports illegal immigrants. In fact, the government deports 350,000 people annually. Since 1999, more than 2.2 million people have been deported from the United States, including visitors who overstayed their visas, lied on immigration forms, or committed serious crimes. State and federal officials regularly check the immigrant status of those who are arrested or serving time in prison.

Myth No. 3 — Economics and business drive U.S. immigration policy. Two-thirds of the 1 million official visas awarded each year are based on family unification. Conversely, only 15% of visas each year are awarded for employment purposes. Other nations devote a far higher percentage of visas to economic or employment-related reasons. Canada, for example, grants more than half of its visas for employment-related reasons.

Myth No. 4 — The United States makes a special effort to attract scientists, engineers and technological experts. Right now, we set aside only 65,000 of America's nearly 1 million visas each year for high-skilled workers. This is well below the 195,000 high-skilled visas that the U.S. allowed from 1999 to 2004. One study found that 25% of all the technology and engineering businesses launched in the USA from 1995 to 2005 had a foreign-born founder. In Silicon Valley, that number was 52.4%.

Myth No. 5 — The courts treat immigrants fairly. In immigration court deportation proceedings, those who have a lawyer win their cases 46% of the time, compared with 16% for those without a lawyer. Because these are civil courts, defendants have no Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination and no guarantee of legal representation.

Myth No. 6 — Americans oppose allowing illegal immigrants to stay in the United States and become citizens. Polling data suggest there is public support for a "path to citizenship" for illegal immigrants currently in the country, subject to certain conditions. Results from a Pew Research Center survey show that 63% favor a "path to citizenship" if illegal immigrants pass a background check, pay fines and have a job.

Myth No. 7 — News stories about immigration are balanced. Studies of mainstream print and broadcast coverage in recent years have found, for instance, that news outlets are twice as likely to focus on the costs rather than benefits of immigration.

Given the importance of immigration to our economic growth, security and national identity, we need a new narrative. We should think about finding the next Albert Einstein, Sergey Brin, or Andrew Grove, future innovators who can start businesses and create high-paying jobs. An immigration policy based on an "Einstein Principle" would increase our odds for economic prosperity and enhance job creation and innovation.

How Travelers Use Smartphones!

Peter Yesawich and I worked together for only about 40 minutes more than 20 years ago.   We  found ourselves immediately on the “same page” but unfortunately no one else in the room was.  Peter and I are both information-driven though we didn’t realize that everyone else thought each participant was expected to only share their “opinions.”

Oh, how many times have I seen that scary movie?

Peter moved south to found Orlando-based Ypartnership and I came east and a bit south to jump-start and run the Durham Convention & Visitors Bureau.  I was always disappointed another opportunity never came along to work with Peter before my retirement eight months ago after nearly 40 years in community marketing.

Peter and his team distribute one of the most useful eNews/blogs for Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs) professionals.  If as I am, you’re a big user of a Smartphone, then you’ll want to check out this blog. They aren’t as prevalent yet as those of us who use them think they are…but this research is an excellent peak into how they will be used when they become ubiquitous.

Click on the chart to enlarge but better yet click on the blog.  And you’re well advised to either subscribe or add it to your Google blog reader.

Six Tips For Giving Great Elevator Pitches

Getting community and business leaders to understand or care about complex things isn’t always easy.  They are almost always smart enough, just not always good enough listeners or readers or maybe, like I’m often accused, they just don’t really listen or read all the way through!

Here are six excellent tips from the Brothers Heath on how to make complex messages simple:

SIX TIPS FOR GIVING A GREAT ELEVATOR PITCH

An elevator pitch is a mixture of an explanation and a sales pitch. It's intended to get people excited about your organization, your new product, or even you personally (in an interview situation). Here's how to give a good one:

1. Think short - no shorter than 30 seconds and no longer than 3 minutes. Time it.

2. If your topic is complex, use the "anchor & twist" format to orient your audience.

3. Don't wing it, script it. Once you've figured out how to explain something well, there is NO value in novelty. Tell it the same (effective) way every time.

4. 'Why' comes before 'What.' People will understand better what you're doing if they first know why you're doing it. Here's an example: "Most people invest some of their savings and give some of it away to charity. Wouldn't it be nice if you could do both at once -- get interest AND impact? That's why we invented the Calvert Community Investment Notes."

5. Mandatory: Include a story. For a product pitch, tell a customer's story. For a nonprofit pitch, talk about the people you help. For self-promotion, highlight a time when you nailed it.

6. Check out other pitches for inspiration. Here's one that we worked on for Peter Singer's great book, The Life You Can Save. And here's a great article about elevator pitches, starring Dave Yewman and Andy Craig, the masters of the craft.

Republished from Dan and Chip Heath

Glenn Beck And Re-Routing A Dream Ride

Glenn Beck pontificating about American values got me thinking about re-routing my dream to one day ride my Harley-Davidson Cross Bones the 2,000+ miles across the United States from my home in Durham, North Carolina to visit my daughter in Salt Lake City, Utah.

This year seems particularly intriguing because it is the 100th anniversary of the death of author Mark Twain known to his friend, my great-great grandfather Thomas K. Messersmith as “Sam Clemens.” They were born a year apart in Missouri about 175 years ago.

When they were age 5 or so, (same as my youngest grandson is now) the governor of Missouri issued an “extermination” order on people like Glenn Beck.

“Extermination” sure puts Arizona in perspective, right Glenn?

Observers, including kids that age, would notice 10,000 people, stripped of their property, fleeing through the cold, rainy and snowy countryside across the frozen Mississippi River just north of Hannibal to the safe harbor and kindness of citizens of Quincy, Illinois.

Puts “Sanctuary City” in perspective, doesn’t it Glenn?

The people who had been ordered “exterminated” were close-knit Christians. But they were different. Missourians, then pro-slavery (an American value at the time, Glenn,) wanted to exterminate these people because they were mostly either immigrants and/or northern abolitionists.

Prior to the order to exterminate, they had already experienced mob violence such as tar and featherings, beatings, rapes, destruction of homes and barns and after the order, a massacre of 18 men, women and children.

It made no difference that many of these people marked for “extermination” came from families who had been Americans since the early 1600s and had fought and died for Independence. They were different and insular. They were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints, nicknamed Mormons.

By the 1860 census, my great-great grandfather had left Missouri for Virginia City, Nevada as a 25 year old miner in the gold rush. Mark Twain joined him there as a partner, after stopping in Utah to visit those same Mormons who had eventually been forced to flee Illinois as well. Twain mentions my great-great grandfather in several letters home.

When they didn’t strike it rich, Thomas joined the Union Army and served in the cavalry 3rd California Volunteers during the Civil War under General Patrick O’Connor (saving the General’s life in one skirmish) guarding the Central Overland Mail Route and peacekeeping between settlers and Native American Tribes like the Shoshone. This is the route previously made famous for a brief time by the Pony Express but operating then as a Wells Fargo Stagecoach route on which another of my great grandfathers was later a driver and on which Twain had made his way to Nevada.

And Mark Twain, well he went on to be Mark Twain. I’m not sure he and Thomas stayed in touch. When the war ended, my great-great grandfather settled near Cedar Fort, Utah between Utah Lake and the Oquirrh (Oker) Mountains, 45 miles south of Salt Lake City. Like Glenn Beck, he became a member of the Mormon Church in agreement with his soon-to-be wife.

But different than the gregarious Twain, Thomas Messersmith (also called Tom Smith and Tom M. Smith both by Twain and in subsequent census) remained a loner much of his life, preferring to be out herding sheep, especially after his wife died. His youngest son Ralph was my mother’s maternal grandfather.

On my planned motorcycle trip west, I think I’ll skip Missouri and cut north along the Mississippi after crossing Kentucky, carving along the edge of Illinois and then following The Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail for the remainder of the trip across Iowa, Nebraska and Wyoming.

I had three ancestors on the first or vanguard wagon train of 147 people and 72 wagons in 1846-47 that cut the trail more than 1,000 miles west so nearly 70,000 others could follow over a 20 year period.

Charles A. Harper, a carriage maker, served as a wheelwright and mechanic, keeping a journal of which I have a photocopy. Two others included Charles Shumway, a captain of ten and his son Andrew.

Still another ancestor, Sebert Shelton, along with 500 others, answered the call of their country and enlisted instead in the Mormon Battalion, heading south and west to serve in the war with Mexico. You can’t say these folks weren't loyal and resilient.

I was raised in and have a deep regard for that culture and its place in my heritage, even though it hasn’t been an active part of my life for nearly 40 years now. But I don’t agree with how far right wing many members of that faith seem today. Nor do I agree with most of Glenn Beck’s inflammatory and often hypocritical rhetoric.

To me both would do well to remember with humility those people of the same faith who endured that dark period in history and hopefully become much more tolerant and accepting of other people who are different.

Now, Glenn, that's an American value to which you really do need to return!