Great column in the West Bend Daily News:
Call I.D. fees what they are
Our government has long drawn a distinction between taxes and fees, but that distinction is quickly evaporating.
Taxes have traditionally been a general levy on the taxpayers that is used to fund the government. All of the money is placed in a general fund and then the government decides how to spend it. Taxes in Wisconsin include the sales tax, income tax, and property tax. Each of these taxes is used to fund the government.
Fees are unlike a tax in that they do not go for the general operations of government. They are levied to directly fund a specific governmental service. For example, the state collects a fee when Wisconsinites register their cars or renew their driver’s license. These fees are intended to be used to maintain the road infrastructure that the drivers who are registering their car will presumably use.
The preference of using fees or taxes to fund government has often been debated in Wisconsin. Some prefer general taxes because it allows flexibility to the legislature in deciding how to spend the money. They argue that all Wisconsinites benefit from the state government’s actions even if they don’t use all of the services, so all Wisconsinites should pay.
Some people prefer a heavier use of fees. They argue that only those Wisconsinites who use a government service should have to pay for it. For example, Wisconsinites pay a fee to use state campgrounds. That fee is used to maintain the campgrounds, so it is levied against the people who use them.
Unfortunately, Wisconsin has been moving toward making fees into just another tax. In the past few years, Governor Doyle and the legislature have raided fee-supported funds and used the money to fund the general operations of government. When they raid a fund, it transforms the fees paid into the fund into a tax, because instead of using the fee to fund the specific purpose for which it was levied, it is being used for general operations.
Gov. Doyle’s budget proposal holds more examples of transforming fees into taxes.
Several years ago, Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner shepherded the REAL ID bill through Congress and into law. This law says that a state must have certain standards for issuing a driver license in order for it to be considered valid as identification for federal purposes, like boarding an airplane. REAL ID was designed to make it more difficult for terrorists to obtain legal identification.
Wisconsin was one of the states that did not have valid standards for issuing licenses. Wisconsin’s system was so loose that illegal immigrants could easily obtain a license. In order to revamp Wisconsin’s system to comply with the REAL ID Act, Gov. Doyle proposed, and the Legislature passed, an additional $10 fee for obtaining or renewing a Wisconsin driver license.
Doyle’s proposed budget does not include any funding to comply with the REAL ID Act, but he still intends to collect the $10 fee. In the private sector this would be called a bait and switch and Doyle would be prosecuted for it. In government, it seems to be par for the course. Not using the $10 fee for its intended purpose – to bring Wisconsin into compliance with the REAL ID Act – changes it into just another tax.
Another example in Doyle’s budget proposal is the fee that is collected for the purpose of the required background check when one buys a gun. This fee is currently $8. The attorney general requested that it be increased to $13 because that is the actual cost of completing the background check. Doyle is proposing that it be increased to $30.
The $17 extra on top of the actual cost of the background check would be another tax. It is money that is not needed for the intended use of the fee and will be dumped into the government’s coffers for general use.
We can debate whether or not Wisconsin should rely more heavily on taxes or fees, but it is dishonest to levy a fee under a specific pretext, like conducting a background check or complying with REAL ID, and then use the money for other purposes.
(Owen B. Robinson, a West Bend resident, is a blogger who publishes at www.bootsandsabers.com. His column runs Tuesdays in the Daily News.)
