Three weeks ago, a national commotion erupted when the Drudge Report headlined a story from the Heritage Foundation on the Obama administration’s implementation of a new tax on Christmas trees. I noted here that the 1996 legislation enabling the U.S. Department of Agriculture to implement the tax received most of its support from Republicans, including co-sponsor John Boehner.
The National Taxpayers Union gives a tidy explanation of how the law almost led to the “Christmas Tree Tax”:
The Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996 permitted producers of agricultural commodities such as beef, pork, or popcorn to create what are known as research and promotion programs, or “checkoffs.” These are analogous to unions: producers pay “dues” to the checkoff which works to fund research and advertising efforts on behalf of the industry represented. Board members are appointed by the Secretary of Agriculture who also has authority to enforce dues-payment. Because the dues are government-coerced, they are essentially taxes passed on to consumers.
There are currently 18 checkoff programs. And while the Obama administration quickly stopped the Christmas tree tax checkoff program from going into effect, there are still other agricultural commodity groups, such as the hardwood lumber industry, pushing for their own checkoff. There are also efforts to allow the creation of non-agricultural commodity checkoffs.
NTU notes that now another Republican wants to create a similar scheme at the Department of Commerce: