« Well THIS is Interesting | Main | Precedent »

December 20, 2005

Taxing Water

This is why businesses don't come to Maine.

Supporters of a proposed tax on bottled water taken from Maine wells failed to collect enough valid signatures to place the issue before voters next year, Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap ruled Monday.

Dunlap said 7,100 of the 56,287 signatures submitted in September by proponents of a 19-cents-per-gallon tax on large water bottlers did not meet state requirements. That left the group behind the referendum, H20 for ME, 1,419 signatures short of the required threshold to put the citizens initiative on the November ballot.

Poland Spring already pays property taxes on the land it uses and is subject to regulation from a number of state agencies. Adding $100 million a year to their operating costs would force them to make some business decisions that would hurt Maine workers. Maine already has enough damned taxes and we should look at ways to cut spending instead of trying to look for new ways to make businesses in the state pay.

Ridiculous.

Posted by slublog at December 20, 2005 08:00 AM

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.slublog.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/2035

Comments

A tax on clean air surely can't be far behind.

Posted by: Hal at December 20, 2005 09:32 AM

Now they're saying the electricity rates for some businesses will be increasing dramatically this spring. That will certainly put anyone with a facility that manufactures or distributes anything (i.e., uses lots of electricity) in the state in the position of making similar business choices. And it certainly won't help attract new businesses, even "creative economy" types.

Peace,

Tor

Posted by: Tor at December 22, 2005 03:38 PM

High quality info here! Keep up the great work. I love the feelings being expressed.

Posted by: Link Building at November 7, 2010 08:40 PM