Sales tax revenue has plummeted since the start of the recession. And for certain states, that’s been a particularly big blow. Of course, sales tax rates vary significantly across states. But factor in local rates and the variation only becomes more apparent, according to the Tax Foundation. Indeed, just because a state has a high statewide rate doesn’t mean it’s total sales tax rate is one of the country’s highest. California, for example, has the highest statewide tax rate and a relatively low local average, keeping it out of the top ten highest overall sales tax rates. Conversely, Louisiana, which has the second lowest statewide tax rate in the country, has the third-highest overall sales tax because of a huge average local rate. Nationwide, sales tax revenue dropped 30 percent in most states between 2007 and 2010. At least part of that related to the increasing prominence of online retailers, who aren’t always required by law to collect sales taxes from customers located outside of the state. But that may soon change. Last week, California Governor Jerry Brown signed a law requiring online retail giant Amazon collect sales taxes on all transactions with customers located within the state, putting “hundreds of millions of dollars back into critical services like education and public safety,” the Governor said. If such a law was applied to all states, it’s been estimated that the added revenue would be enough to pay the salaries of an additional 460,000 teachers. Other states, like Connecticut, may soon follow California’s example, but don’t expect the drama to end there. Vice President of Amazon, Paul Misener says the issue won’t be completely resolved until Congress steps in. Here are the top 10 states with the highest combined sales tax rates as of July 1, 2011, according to the Tax Foundation:
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Sales tax revenue has plummeted since the start of the recession. And for certain states, that’s been a particularly big blow. Of course, sales tax rates vary significantly across states. But factor in local rates and the variation only becomes more apparent, according to the Tax Foundation. Indeed, just because a state has a high statewide rate doesn’t mean it’s total sales tax rate is one of the country’s highest. California, for example, has the highest statewide tax rate and a relatively low local average, keeping it out of the top ten highest overall sales tax rates. Conversely, Louisiana, which has the second lowest statewide tax rate in the country, has the third-highest overall sales tax because of a huge average local rate. Nationwide, sales tax revenue dropped 30 percent in most states between 2007 and 2010. At least part of that related to the increasing prominence of online retailers, who aren’t always required by law to collect sales taxes from customers located outside of the state. But that may soon change. Last week, California Governor Jerry Brown signed a law requiring online retail giant Amazon collect sales taxes on all transactions with customers located within the state, putting “hundreds of millions of dollars back into critical services like education and public safety,” the Governor said. If such a law was applied to all states, it’s been estimated that the added revenue would be enough to pay the salaries of an additional 460,000 teachers. Other states, like Connecticut, may soon follow California’s example, but don’t expect the drama to end there. Vice President of Amazon, Paul Misener says the issue won’t be completely resolved until Congress steps in. Here are the top 10 states with the highest combined sales tax rates as of July 1, 2011, according to the Tax Foundation:
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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Netflix Inc has won a deal to pipe Dreamworks Animation movies starting in 2013, the first time a major Hollywood studio has chosen Internet streaming over traditional pay TV, The New York Times reported on Sunday. Dreamworks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg told the newspaper the deal, worth $30 million per picture to Dreamworks over a number of years, was “game-changing” and represented a bet that viewers would soon no longer make distinctions between content streamed on the Internet or through cable. The Netflix deal means Dreamworks — the studio behind family friendly fare from “Shrek” to “Kung Fu Panda” — is eschewing premium pay-TV operator HBO in favor of online streaming, the Times reported. HBO is a unit of Time Warner Inc. “We are really starting to see a long-term road map of where the industry is headed,” Katzenberg was cited as saying to the newspaper in an interview. The content agreement comes days after Netflix, which has seen its share price decline sharply after a series of missteps, sealed an agreement to broadcast TV shows from Discovery Communications Inc. Netflix needs to add more content to its streaming service to keep drawing in new customers and fend off competition from the likes of Amazon.com, Google Inc and Apple Inc. Shares of the one-time Wall Street darling have fallen 50 percent in two months. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has apologized for failing to explain moves adequately, from a surprise price hike in July to a separation of its DVD-mail from streaming services, and the company is trying to win customers back. But adding customers is suddenly proving difficult, with Netflix on the receiving end of heated complaints from customers still upset over the price hike announced in July. It cut its subscriber forecast by 1 million, saying it now expected to have 24 million subscribers at the end of the third quarter. The last time Netflix reported a subscriber decline was the second quarter of 2007, when Blockbuster was aggressively pushing a DVD rental package called Total Access. According to the Times, Netflix was quick to pump up the Dreamworks deal. “This is one of the few family entertainment brands that matter,” Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos was quoted as saying. “It’s also a signal to people that we are in no way moving away from movies. Our programing is just reflecting more and more what people want.” Netflix and Dreamworks were not available for comment. (Reporting by Edwin Chan; Editing by Peter Cooney) Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for Restrictions
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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Netflix Inc has won a deal to pipe Dreamworks Animation movies starting in 2013, the first time a major Hollywood studio has chosen Internet streaming over traditional pay TV, The New York Times reported on Sunday. Dreamworks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg told the newspaper the deal, worth $30 million per picture to Dreamworks over a number of years, was “game-changing” and represented a bet that viewers would soon no longer make distinctions between content streamed on the Internet or through cable. The Netflix deal means Dreamworks — the studio behind family friendly fare from “Shrek” to “Kung Fu Panda” — is eschewing premium pay-TV operator HBO in favor of online streaming, the Times reported. HBO is a unit of Time Warner Inc. “We are really starting to see a long-term road map of where the industry is headed,” Katzenberg was cited as saying to the newspaper in an interview. The content agreement comes days after Netflix, which has seen its share price decline sharply after a series of missteps, sealed an agreement to broadcast TV shows from Discovery Communications Inc. Netflix needs to add more content to its streaming service to keep drawing in new customers and fend off competition from the likes of Amazon.com, Google Inc and Apple Inc. Shares of the one-time Wall Street darling have fallen 50 percent in two months. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has apologized for failing to explain moves adequately, from a surprise price hike in July to a separation of its DVD-mail from streaming services, and the company is trying to win customers back. But adding customers is suddenly proving difficult, with Netflix on the receiving end of heated complaints from customers still upset over the price hike announced in July. It cut its subscriber forecast by 1 million, saying it now expected to have 24 million subscribers at the end of the third quarter. The last time Netflix reported a subscriber decline was the second quarter of 2007, when Blockbuster was aggressively pushing a DVD rental package called Total Access. According to the Times, Netflix was quick to pump up the Dreamworks deal. “This is one of the few family entertainment brands that matter,” Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos was quoted as saying. “It’s also a signal to people that we are in no way moving away from movies. Our programing is just reflecting more and more what people want.” Netflix and Dreamworks were not available for comment. (Reporting by Edwin Chan; Editing by Peter Cooney) Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for Restrictions
Continue reading …NYT Blames Conservative Victims for ‘Diversity Bake Sale’ Backlash, Threats on Left-Wing Campus
September 27, 2011 No CommentPolitical dissent on campus – acceptable when it involves left-wing protesters shouting down conservative speakers, but hurtful and possibly dangerous when performed in a peaceful, parodic nature by conservatives. That’s the impression left by the New York Times. Malia Wollan visited the campus of the University of California at Berkeley for Tuesday’s report, “ A ‘Diversity Bake Sale’ Backfires on Campus .” The parody “bake sale,” mocking affirmative action in California college admissions, has not in fact taken place yet, but the threats and intimidation are already pouring in on the Republican activists — things the Times isn't overly bothered about. A bake sale sponsored by a Republican student group at the University of California, Berkeley, has incited anger and renewed the debate over affirmative action by asking students to pay different prices for pastry, depending on their race and sex. Last week, the Berkeley College Republicans announced its “Increase Diversity Bake Sale,” scheduled for Tuesday. On Facebook, the group listed the price for a pastry at $2 for white students, $1.50 for Asian students, $1 for Latinos, 75 cents for African-Americans and 25 cents for Native Americans. Women of all races were promised a 25-cent discount. “Hope to see you all there! If you don’t come, you’re a racist!” the Facebook event page said. (It has since been taken down and replaced with milder text.) “We expected people to be upset,” the group’s president, Shawn Lewis, 20, a third-year political science major, said Monday in a telephone interview. “Treating people differently based on the color of their skin is wrong, and we wanted people to be upset about that.” The bake sale was scheduled to protest a phone bank organized by the Associated Students of the University of California, the campus student government group, where students planned to call Gov. Jerry Brown and urge him to sign a Senate bill that would allow public universities to consider race, gender and ethnicity in admissions decisions. In 1996, voters in the state passed a ballot initiative, known as Proposition 209, prohibiting affirmative action in admissions.
Continue reading …NYT Blames Conservative Victims for ‘Diversity Bake Sale’ Backlash, Threats on Left-Wing Campus
September 27, 2011 No CommentPolitical dissent on campus – acceptable when it involves left-wing protesters shouting down conservative speakers, but hurtful and possibly dangerous when performed in a peaceful, parodic nature by conservatives. That’s the impression left by the New York Times. Malia Wollan visited the campus of the University of California at Berkeley for Tuesday’s report, “ A ‘Diversity Bake Sale’ Backfires on Campus .” The parody “bake sale,” mocking affirmative action in California college admissions, has not in fact taken place yet, but the threats and intimidation are already pouring in on the Republican activists — things the Times isn't overly bothered about. A bake sale sponsored by a Republican student group at the University of California, Berkeley, has incited anger and renewed the debate over affirmative action by asking students to pay different prices for pastry, depending on their race and sex. Last week, the Berkeley College Republicans announced its “Increase Diversity Bake Sale,” scheduled for Tuesday. On Facebook, the group listed the price for a pastry at $2 for white students, $1.50 for Asian students, $1 for Latinos, 75 cents for African-Americans and 25 cents for Native Americans. Women of all races were promised a 25-cent discount. “Hope to see you all there! If you don’t come, you’re a racist!” the Facebook event page said. (It has since been taken down and replaced with milder text.) “We expected people to be upset,” the group’s president, Shawn Lewis, 20, a third-year political science major, said Monday in a telephone interview. “Treating people differently based on the color of their skin is wrong, and we wanted people to be upset about that.” The bake sale was scheduled to protest a phone bank organized by the Associated Students of the University of California, the campus student government group, where students planned to call Gov. Jerry Brown and urge him to sign a Senate bill that would allow public universities to consider race, gender and ethnicity in admissions decisions. In 1996, voters in the state passed a ballot initiative, known as Proposition 209, prohibiting affirmative action in admissions.
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Perhaps it would have been simpler had she replaced the weapon with a snake around her neck. Britney Spears has incurred the wrath of Britain’s politicians for brandishing a weapon during her latest music video for “Criminal.” While the clip’s director Chris Marrs Piliero (he also helmed “I Wanna Go”) is clearly taking the song
Continue reading …Another step for women’s equality : Australia’s military has become the fourth in the world to allow women to take on front-line combat roles. Announced today, the move opens some of the country’s most dangerous combat jobs to women, including Special Forces positions in Afghanistan and some army artillery slots. Australian…
Continue reading …Extended Fight Scene From Bridesmaids Is Kristen Wiig’s Crowining Achievment
September 27, 2011 No Comment
Remember that scene in Bridesmaids when Kristen Wiig gets into a fight with a kid, and the kid basically delivers a verbal smackdown until Kristen’s character calls her the worst thing a lady could be called? Yeah, it’s pretty funny. And now it’s ten minutes long in this extended clip that is essential, NSFW viewing: [via Splitsider] Broadcasting platform : YouTube Source : VH1′s Today In Music Discovery Date : 27/09/2011 16:08 Number of articles : 4
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Jury rules that officers who cornered gunman Raoul Moat and fired a Taser at him behaved properly during six-hour stand-off The fugitive gunman Raoul Moat took his own life after police fired an unapproved Taser at him, an inquest jury decided on Tuesday. The jury concluded that the armed officers had behaved properly during the six-hour stand-off with the 37-year-old former bouncer at Rothbury, Northumberland, in July 2010. Moat had been on the run for a week after shooting his ex-girlfriend Samantha Stobbart, 22 and killing her new partner Chris Brown, 29. He went on to shoot and blind an unarmed traffic officer, PC David Rathband, after declaring “war” on police. The three-week inquest at Newcastle crown court had been told that Moat was hit by an experimental Taser round fired by marksmen who believed he was about to kill himself. The Taser had no effect, aand Moat shot himself in the head. The inquest was told that Moat had likened himself to King Kong while on the run . The jurors spent five hours considering their verdict . Summing up, the coroner David Mitford said the jury should consider either a verdict of suicide or an open verdict. He told them they had to answer five questions linked to whether police should have used the untested XRep X12 Taser that had not been approved by the Home Office. It had been the first time it had been used in the UK during a police operation. The coroner said the jury had to be “satisfied so you are sure” before returning a verdict of suicide. An Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) investigation into the operation found no evidence of misconduct by officers. The IPCC looked at the period from the sighting of Moat until his death, including strategy and tactics and the deployment of XRep Tasers. It concluded that there may be “some learning” for Northumbria Police from the investigation but there was no evidence any police officers had committed misconduct. One area the jury had to consider was whether the use of Tasers was appropriate. It found no evidence of improper behaviour by police. Moat’s brother Angus told the inquest that he should have been allowed to negotiate with his brother, but this request was turned down by police. He said Raoul responded to aggression and threat “but he also responded to kindness and friendship”. The inquest had been told that Moat has said he would “take the shoot-out” rather than go back to jail. He left a message on a dictating machine three or four days before he was cornered by police marksmen. In it, he described losing the only two people who mattered to him – his grandmother and his former girlfriend. Moat’s brother Angus told the inquest that Raoul had attempted suicide in 1999 and was treated in hospital for a drug overdose. While on the run, their mother had spoken to the press and said Raoul would be better off dead, but Angus Moat had disagreed. He said she had bipolar disorder and was “severely mentally ill and incapable of being a parent”. He said if he had been able to speak to his brother, he thought he would be able to change the way he was feeling and the way he would act. Raoul Moat Police Crime Helen Carter guardian.co.uk
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