Helmsley Dies Alone - Leaves Little People Taxes Behind

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Little people will pay:
Republican Rep. Robin Vos said the tax will be passed on to Wisconsin consumers….

Economics 101: Little People always pay:
It's hard for any economist not to laugh at politicians who try to legally enforce the economic incidence of a tax. Any first-year microeconomics student will learn that the taxpayer who is legally required to pay a tax is not always the one who will really bear the economic incidence of the tax.

WPRI: Little people pay more at pump:
The report includes an economic refresher showing that, if the no-pass-through feature stays, markets will adjust to the added cost and pump prices will rise. There is nothing nefarious about this phenomenon; it is the way a free market works. A legal review shows that the new tax is built on shaky legal ground. Similar no-pass-through provisions have been found to be a violation of the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

Professor: Little people will pay :
Nonetheless, University of Wisconsin-Madison business professor Rodney E. Stevenson said he expects any new Wisconsin tax on oil companies to be passed to consumers in some way.

WMC: Little people will pay tax;
MADISON, Wis. - Wisconsin's largest business group says soaring gasoline prices mean that a new tax on oil companies proposed by Gov. Jim Doyle would amount to a 7-cent per gallon increase in the gas tax.
"I think consumers will pay it," Jeff Schoepke, the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce's director of tax and corporate policy, said Tuesday.

Gazette: Believes Tax will be passed on to little people:
Doyle says the tax can't be passed on to consumers. We don't believe that, and we fear the measure could squeeze out small retailers and even lead to regional gas shortages.

Doyle: Jail if Tax passed on to little people:
Gov. Jim Doyle's plan to tax oil company sales - and to jail their executives if the additional cost is passed on to consumers - is a unique proposal fraught with enforcement problems, even assuming it passes constitutional muster.

NEW YORK –Leona Helmsley, the cutthroat corporatist Libertarian whose title as the “queen of mean” was sealed during a tax evasion case in which she was quoted as snarling “We don’t pay taxes, only little people pay taxes,” died Monday at age 87.