Unhappy over taxes

January 12, 2008 10:40 am

— Dear Editor,
I’ve never written to any newspaper or radio or T.V. station, nor to any public figure.
But last week’s headline and article crowing about how much sales tax PV reaped, really upset me.
My dear people, who do you think pays the majority of this sales tax?
I’m 72. I live on Social Security, S.S.I. and $10 a month in food stamps. Yes, I get a sales tax refund check in January every year — of less than $40. My income is less than $700 a month total. Half or more of the town are like me.
I pay a heck of a lot more sales tax in a year than $38. I have to take things off my grocery list to allow for the tax.
Which one of you, who so exalt in the sales tax revenue, could live on my income or would even be willing to try?
Also, having been raised here I know the money’s never going to get used for what it’s supposedly meant for. It never has been, never will be.
It’s Pauls Valley. It’s always been this way.
I worked my whole life — never drew an unemployment check, never was on welfare, never got food stamps till I retired. I’ve never even used Medicare or Medicaid except for an eye operation in 2004.
I don’t know that I object to the sales tax itself so much as I object strenuously to your attitude about collecting so much.
At least 65 percent to 70 percent of that sales tax come from people like me — who have to choose cheaper, unhealthier foods, to have enough to eat while we pay the tax.
And that’s the way it is, out here in the real world.
Frances McFiren
Pauls Valley