Gov. Jerry Brown vetoes tax cut for tampons

[DC Al Fine]

You forgot to mention that other items besides tampons were to be exempted from sales taxes.  I agree this is a good veto. I live in a state that has made such a Swiss cheese out of its sales tax that if we removed all the exemptions we'd either double the revenue or could cut the rate in half. (And that's not even considering our back-to-school sale tax holiday, the best time of the year to get a wedding dress since as clothing it's exempted then, but only if you buy, not if you rent your dress.

Agreed. The best way to deal with the regressive aspect of sales taxes, is rebates for low income citizens, not exempting necessities. That's a recipe for lobbying and arcane legislation.

[DC Al Fine]

You forgot to mention that other items besides tampons were to be exempted from sales taxes.  I agree this is a good veto. I live in a state that has made such a Swiss cheese out of its sales tax that if we removed all the exemptions we'd either double the revenue or could cut the rate in half. (And that's not even considering our back-to-school sale tax holiday, the best time of the year to get a wedding dress since as clothing it's exempted then, but only if you buy, not if you rent your dress.

Agreed. The best way to deal with the regressive aspect of sales taxes, is rebates for low income citizens, not exempting necessities. That's a recipe for lobbying and arcane legislation.

How do you put that kind of rebate into practice, though, without requiring onerous amounts of documentation for businesses or taxing people into poverty, homelessness, hunger, and debt while they wait months for a rebate check?

Is EITC and the like paid annually? Rebates and benefits are paid monthly in Canada.

Also, 'onerous amounts of documentation' isn't unique to rebates. Businesses have to maintain extensive documentation, since a favourite tax evasion scheme is to report a higher % of zero rated sales than what was actually sold.