The Cost of Being a Good Citizen

When I was a little girl in Upstate NY, my grandparents lived in an old 18-room depression era house. In the upstairs of their home, down the whole right side, my grandfather had a wood working shop. He had an old timey radio and an old timey rocking chair. It was the best place to sit. Listening to baseball on the radio and smelling the different woods suspended from the wood rafters he hung from the high ceilings. I could watch him work, and rock in that chair for what seemed like forever.

When I'm in a flea market, thrift store, estate sale or hardware store, I'm in my happy place! I love seeing potential in a tired old piece that was loved for many years. I have friends at work that share my love and passion for beautiful things. We go off hunting for treasures on our lunch hours! Then I haul it home and work on it in the evenings and on weekends. My friend Amanda decorated her new build home from these kinds of adventures. It’s amazing what we could cram into her car!!

The custom pieces in my shop, https://www.etsy.com/shop/CastleRockDecor, are not rushed, assembly line jobs. There is no mass spray painting or one-coat finishes here. These are lovingly re-created in a manner that makes me want to keep them in my own home. Each piece takes on a character of its own and gets a name. Not everyone can afford to buy custom furniture or pay the shipping to get it. However, for the lucky few that can, I'm so glad my re-loved treasures are going to a home that can appreciate their beauty!

I don’t sell a lot of pieces. It’s not about the money. I’ve only sold one piece this year. It sold to someone here in the state of Ohio, just a couple of towns away. She just graduated college and was starting her first teaching job soon. She just loved the colors of the little Mint Chocolate Chip dresser, https://www.etsy.com/listing/507003040/mint-chocolate-chip-4-drawer-dresser?show_sold_out_detail=1 . This is where the real story starts. As part of an in-state transaction, Etsy automatically applied and collected the State Sales Tax.

As my first in-state transaction, I had to go to the state tax website to pay them the collected tax. My first attempt resulted in finding out I must have a Transient Vendor License # for paying this tax. I spent the better part of an hour and a half trying to get registered on the state’s Ohio Business Gateway. That sounds like something impressive doesn’t it? A Gateway. Well near the end of the registration process I received a page error telling me it couldn’t load. Several minutes later while trying to restart the process, I saw this new message that was not on the registration page:

I almost laughed at the highlighted bit under the pink box.

Almost.

Then I saw a note that you could also register at the County level

I thought, “Great!” until I got to that part of the County website, where it very clearly gives instructions on how to register through the less than impressive Gateway:

I will still wrangle and fight through the bureaucracy but is this the best way to keep people wanting to participate in your system? I only have $10.64 in sales tax to pay but do you think there are others that have tried and failed with much more to pay? Do you think it’s a good chance some people have just given up? Government isn’t the answer, it’s the cancer. Taxes really are theft. Just on a grander scale than smash and grab robberies. The State just used me to steal $10.64 from a nice young girl just out of college that hadn’t even started her first job yet. And then… in their inefficiency, have nearly blocked me from giving them what I will be caged for, if I don’t keep fighting to find a way to give it to them.

#VoteDifferent #VoteFree #VoteLibertarian www.VoteFreeOhio.com