Yes, you can thank the Obama administration for this one
(Heritage) 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.
OK, it’s not much, and it only applies to those who sell more than 500 Christmas trees…..are we still allowed to say that? Isn’t it now “Holiday Tree”?……., but, why would they do this?
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).
Here is government at its best: putting a tax, albeit a tiny one, on something that everyone, including the aliens who plan on destroying humanity over globull warming, knows about. There is absolutely no need for Big Government to help with marketing, research, evaluation, and information that strengthens the Christmas tree industry. Said program will probably cost more than any taxes taken in, just in administration.
Update: looks like the O administration has decided to hold off on their plan to stimulate Christmas trees by taxing Christmas trees.
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