Portland hits seniors, low-income with $5M phone tax — now eye Cell-Tax!

Portland hits seniors, low-income with $5M phone tax — now eye Cell-Tax!
By Taxpayer Association of Oregon

From the front page article in The Oregonian today:

“Fish said he supported the tax. He signaled that he hoped the future council will consider taking up the issue of wireless phone service….Jason Williams, executive director of the Taxpayers Association of Oregon, said he was disappointed by the council vote. “We’re concerned Portland just raised a multi-million dollar tax on seniors to pay for their legal bailout -for something that has nothing to do with phone service.” Williams said the increased rates to customers will unfairly impact seniors who rely on land-line phones. Speaking of the City Council members, Williams said, “To them it’s free money, but to seniors and low-income people it’s not.”

It is unfortunate enough that the Portland council just took $5 million from local phone users (primarily seniors, low-income, unemployed & others) , but they could not wait a mere day without mentioning  that they now want to go after cell-phone users with a brand new tax.

Taxes to Portland City Council are like those people who win a shopping prize where they have two minutes in a mad dash to fill their grocery cart with anything they can grab in the store — except in this case, they did not win a contest and neither the store nor the other shoppers want them around!!!   Portland area governments grabbed a half billion more in taxes from three taxes on the November ballot — but that is never enough.

Go here if you wish to stop future tax increases in Portland