May this Easter holiday bring your family health, happiness, and lots of love.
Brutus
Sign up with the IRS
March 31, 2018I unfortunately had reason to try to sign on to the internal revenue site the other day.
This is what they suggested the experience would be like:
I chuckled when I read that they think fast is 15 minutes.
Two hours later I still was not able to get it done.
We deserve better
Brutus
2 Comments | 
Federal Government | 
Permalink
Posted by Brutus
How to educate our mayor
March 30, 2018The Texas comptroller has this graphic on his web site:
The site explains:
Texas county sales taxes were first authorized in 1987, when most city and transit sales taxes were already in place — and many were already at the 2 percent cap. For this reason, most county sales taxes are applied outside metropolitan areas, with the notable exception of El Paso County. At present, 123 Texas counties levy sales taxes, most at a rate of 0.5 percent. County sales tax revenue generally is earmarked by statute for property tax relief.
Contrary to what the mayor seems to be saying, the city is not giving any sales tax to the county.
More accurately, the voters of El Paso county decided to impose the tax on purchases. The city had nothing to do with it.
The city has a legal department with enough lawyers to make it one of the largest law organizations in the city. Maybe the mayor could get one of them to educate him.
We deserve better
Brutus
3 Comments | City government, County Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus
Is the mayor trying to raise taxes?
March 29, 2018If our current mayor finds a way to take the 1/2% sales and use tax that the county gets away from the county what will happen to our county taxes?
According to recent news reports the city thinks that the money in question comes to about $43 million a year.
Would the county have to raise their property tax rate?
Wouldn’t this end up being a tax increase from the mayor who told us that he would work to keep taxes low?
We deserve better
Brutus
14 Comments | City government, County Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus
Checking his math
March 28, 2018An astute reader sent this in the other day:
Our representative is touting the streetcars as symbols of our cross-border relationship with Juarez, claiming they crossed the border more than 500 times a day.
Even if they operated on a 24 hour basis, that would mean one crossing every three minutes.
I don’t think so.
We deserve better
Brutus
7 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus
elpasospeak 
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