Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!csri.toronto.edu!mart
Newsgroups: ont.general
From: mart@csri.toronto.edu (Mart Molle)
Subject: Re: Sunday shopping
Message-ID: <1989Dec29.231135.20412@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu>
Summary: Why not use a special tax to discourage it instead of banning it?
Keywords: maybe cynical surprisingly workable
Organization: University of Toronto, CSRI
References: <25900FAC.1DA4@telly.on.ca> <1989Dec21.051318.6564@utzoo.uucp> <697@alias.UUCP> <25999616.7242@telly.on.ca> <1989Dec29.113120.6892@me.toronto.edu> <69184@looking.on.ca>
Date: 30 Dec 89 04:11:36 GMT
Lines: 38

In many articles, everybody debates the pros and cons of Sunday shopping,
whether we have the right to do it, whether it is right to do it, ad nauseum.

So how about the following (not entirely tongue-in-cheek) compromise.
Following the moral leadership the government has shown wrt other Bad Things
(namely tobacco products and alcohol), why not a new "sin tax" that is only
collected on goods and services bought on Sunday.  The pro's get to buy the
widgets they need to fix Junior's bike (but at a price), and con's are smug in
the knowledge that the government will punish people (and businesses -- they
have to figure out how to collect it) for doing it where it counts -- in
their wallet.  The government looks like it's trying to do the right thing
to both sides, all the while gathering up windfall profits (better them than
some greedy merchant, eh?) to pay off the national debt, buy a fleet of
nuclear subs and keep VIA going will into the next millenium... :-)

Seriously, though, it seems like a more workable scheme than the present one
(i.e., you can't open today and earn big bucks from those bored/desperate
people unless you meet some arbitrary rules wrt. type of business, size and
location).  Furthermore, if Sunday shopping is a Bad Thing, then it provides
something tangible (other than Big Brother saying "you can't do that") that
affects both customers and merchants (why should *they* get punished if they
try to sell *me* something on a Sunday, but I don't?).  Also, regarding its
(negative?) effect on tourism.  First, if it isn't set at too high a rate, it
might make things better than now (where you can't count on buying a souvenier
bottle of maple syrup at any price...).  Second, it is already the case that
visitors can apply to get their provincial sales tax refunded after they get
home, if they hold on to their receipts.  I don't remember the details, but
my mother in law (from California) found out about it before a visit last year.
Thus, the same forms ought to "solve" the tourist problem for the "Sunday
shopping tax".

I wonder what level of taxation would be needed to get the "right" effect...

Mart L. Molle
Computer Systems Research Institute
University of Toronto
Toronto, Canada M5S 1A4
(416)978-4928