Not Telling Jennifer . . .

"I'm not telling Jennifer" he said.  This from the man selling wooden chopping blocks last summer at a Michigan craft festival.  He was responding to my query concerning sales tax.

Not tell Jennifer? . . . Who is Jennifer? . . .   His wife? . . . Co-worker? . . . Why would she care?

Then I got it.  Jennifer Granholm is the governor of Michigan.  Conditions in Michigan are really bad right now and may be looking worse for the future.  The state,  businesses, residents . . .  everyone is scrambling!  Unemployment is 14.3%, up from 8.7% a year ago.

A recent, and rather frightening article, predicts that Michigan's General and School Aid funds will need to be cut almost 50% by 2017 (see here) if the budget is to be balanced   More and more residents are rebelling, clamoring that state employees and social welfare recipients also need to start sharing the pain.  Its a mess.

In a way ,the state brings on its own problems.  We collect sales tax on summer rentals in Michigan.  What I found quite astounding was how difficult it was to set up forwarding the payments on to the state.  You need to fill out forms and jump through a lot of hoops -- and thats to send money to them!

The state doesn't seem to have a provision for individuals to pay sales or use tax, even if they owe it.  The forms are all company oriented, and there is less and less traditional employment in Michigan.  After unproductive phone calls and emails I finally gave up and just put my last name in the "Company Name" field.  Not sure if it was correct, but they are accepting and cashing the checks.

Untaxed, unregulated, unlicensed, unreported . . . America's underground economy keeps growing.  The Christain Science Monitor recently estimated the shadow economy to be as big as $1 trillion or 8% of GDP  (see here).  Every uptick in unemployment, every tax increase, and every new regulation drives the figures up.

If you are unemployed and ambitious you do what it takes to get by.  Telling Jennifer is all too often just not a priority.