Zombie Tax Next!?!

While I have a natural (at least it seems natural to me) abhorrence of most thing political, I also have a love of things completely absurd. Imagine the quandary I found myself in when I read that the United States Federal Government is trying to implement a 15 cents ($0.15) fee for every Christmas tree sold by Christmas tree dealers who sell over 500 trees a year. The fee would fund a Department of Agriculture committee that would help to promote Christmas tree sales.

They don't think the fee will be passed on to those buying trees. Yeah, and if oil companies were paying their fair share of federal taxes, that cost won't get passed on to consumers too.

They also claim it's not a tax, though the fee is mandatory for the tree sellers and goes to fund the government-appointed committee. In the ABCNews story, a White House spokesman had this to say:

I can tell you unequivocally that the Obama Administration is not taxing Christmas trees. What’s being talked about here is an industry group deciding to impose fees on itself to fund a promotional campaign, similar to how the dairy producers have created the ‘Got Milk?’ campaign.

Why is the USDA involved then? Why can't the industry group use a union or a guild or some other private corporate body? The same spokesman said:

USDA is going to delay implementation and revisit this action.

Read about it here (where they unfairly try to pin this absurdity directly on President Obama), especially if you are a fan of combox crazy commentary. I hardly ever read com boxes because I barely have enough time to write blog entries and read the two dozen or so blogs that I do read.

Here's the ABC News report: