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Wednesday, November 09, 2011

Obama Couldn’t Wait: His New Christmas Tree Tax

President Obama’s Agriculture Department today announced that it will impose a new 15-cent charge on all fresh Christmas trees—the Christmas Tree Tax—to support a new Federal program to improve the image and marketing of Christmas trees.

In the Federal Register of November 8, 2011, Acting Administrator of Agricultural Marketing David R. Shipman announced that the Secretary of Agriculture will appoint a Christmas Tree Promotion Board. The purpose of the Board is to run a “program of promotion, research, evaluation, and information designed to strengthen the Christmas tree industry’s position in the marketplace; maintain and expend existing markets for Christmas trees; and to carry out programs, plans, and projects designed to provide maximum benefits to the Christmas tree industry” (7 CFR 1214.46(n)). And the program of “information” is to include efforts to “enhance the image of Christmas trees and the Christmas tree industry in the United States” (7 CFR 1214.10).

To pay for the new Federal Christmas tree image improvement and marketing program, the Department of Agriculture imposed a 15-cent fee on all sales of fresh Christmas trees by sellers of more than 500 trees per year (7 CFR 1214.52). And, of course, the Christmas tree sellers are free to pass along the 15-cent Federal fee to consumers who buy their Christmas trees.

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11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Our first muslim President.

Anonymous said...

Not a shocker!Whatever he can tax he will!

Anonymous said...

Mighty funny the story conveniently leaves out the fact that a huge swath of the farmers and dealers support this initiative as a good idea to help them boost sales.

mack said...

WAKE UP AMERICA the new tax rule of thumb will be as follows ::
WE WILL TAX ALL ITEMS NEEDED TO LIVE DAY TO DAY. Water Tax (aka flush tax) Gas tax , Toll Fee's , snack tax and all other items we need to live day to day. They have fiqured out that they can tax these items and other day to day item we MUST have and we have no choice but to deal with it...AND YOU ALL STILL VOTE THE SAME FOOLS IN YEAR AFTER YEAR...

Anonymous said...

Somebody needs to shove a Christmas Tree up Obamas ass and the light it.

Anonymous said...

By the time obama gets done with ya, you won't be worring about christmas.

Anonymous said...

Will that apply to fake christmas trees?

Anonymous said...

4:01 and the rest, thanks for highlighting how ignorant all of you are. 2 seconds of searching on your own would have found that info. 4:01. And I guaruntee the rest of you don't even know what this initiative was about, but you will spout nonsense anyway.

Anonymous said...

How can they put a tax on Christmas trees yet our own schools have to call them holiday trees. If anyone thinks they will collect this tax and give it or use it for marketing/image improvement they are the idiot.

Anonymous said...

5:12 PM

Well gee thanks for your non-answer. But since they tabled the whole thing the point is mute anyway for the time being.

And thanks for sharing YOUR nonsense as well.

Anonymous said...

5:12 PM

If they could put a tax on idiots like you we could get the countries debt down to zero in a month.