Marginal Revolution

Tyler Cowan at Marginal Revolution points to a CNN story on odd taxes.

Two on the list that he doesn’t directly comment on :
“‘Jock’ tax: Some cities and states levy taxes on the income earned by athletes, entertainers (OK, not just jocks) and their various entourages, including non-athletic or non-performer employees. Generally, that means any money earned by a player or performer while playing in that particular city or state gets taxed. For instance, Cincinnati levies a 2.1 percent jock tax.

California levied the first jock tax in 1991, on athletes from Chicago, right after the Chicago Bulls beat the L.A. Lakers. (Chicago quickly responded in kind.) And today, most states with a professional sports team impose a jock tax. “

This has also been standard in the UK for a number of years. Visiting entertainers ( most especially rock and pop stars on tour ) must pay UK income tax on their earnings in the UK. Famously this led to the Stones not playing a couple of gigs one year, as performing, and thus creating a UK tax liability, would have meant paying tax on the rest of the money they had received in the UK that year : the year they got a large advance on a recording contract. The advance in itself did not lead to a UK tax bill as they did not work or reside in the UK that year.

“Playing card tax: If you want a deck of cards in the state of Alabama, be prepared to shell out an extra dime. The state government has levied a 10-cent tax on the purchase of a playing deck that contains “no more than 54 cards”. If you object to this, get your playing cards in a different state, or buy a deck with an extra joker.”

Again, this is an old tax, certainly back to 1700 or so England. Have you noticed that the Ace of Spades is usually different in a pack ? Above and beyond it being black, an ace and spadelike ? Usually it is more ornate than the other aces. This is the ” Stamp ” of the Stamp Tax that was levied upon packs of playing cards : yes, that very same Stamp Tax that caused certain little problems amongst the N American Loyal Subjects of George III a few decades later. Alabama would appear to be doing something slightly unAmerican with this tax.
Still rather better than the situation in England then though. Under the Bloody Code there were more than 250 offences earning the death sentence, including ” defacing Westminster Bridge” and avoiding the Stamp Tax by forging that very Ace of Spades.