PA Bill Number: HR541
Title: Recognizing the month of October 2024 as "Domestic Violence Awareness Month" in Pennsylvania.
Description: A Resolution recognizing the month of October 2024 as "Domestic Violence Awareness Month" in Pennsylvania.
Last Action:
Last Action Date: Sep 27, 2024
What Seattle isn't saying about gun tax may speak volumes :: 05/16/2016
When the Seattle City Council passed a gun and ammunition tax last year, Council President Tim Burgess predicted it would raise between $300,000 and $500,000 to be used on "gun violence" education and prevention efforts, but on Friday the city was refusing to disclose how much revenue the program produced during the first quarter of 2016, according to MyNorthwest.com.
Coincidentally, a separate but concurrent inquiry by TheGunMag.com, a publication owned by the Second Amendment Foundation, also got the silent treatment from the city on its gun tax revenue. SAF is suing the city along with the National Rifle Association and National Shooting Sports Foundation, to overturn the tax on the grounds that it violates the state’s 33-year-old preemption statute (see links below).
Joining in that lawsuit are two Seattle gun shops and two private citizens. One of those shops has already moved its operation out of the city, and the other told KIRO midday host Dori Monson Friday that his store paid the city “roughly” $21,400 for the first quarter.
However, Mike Coombs at the Outdoor Emporium also said the city had lost sales tax revenue because of the business his store has lost. The Emporium also sells fishing tackle, camping and boating equipment. Coombs told Monson that he has laid off two employees as a result. It is a certainty the city lost revenue when the other shop moved out of town. That store, Precise Shooter, and Outdoor Emporium are both plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
On Friday, a city official responding to a public records request from TheGunMag.com said via e-mail, “Given the limited number of quarterly returns filed, the City believes releasing any information at this time about the number of filers or amount reported would risk revealing identifying taxpayer information, which is protected from disclosure per Seattle Municipal Code and state law.”
A separate inquiry to the city by a private citizen seeking the same information also resulted in a brush-off. That citizen contacted SAF late Friday afternoon, sharing an e-mail he received from the city that stated, “As some businesses file quarterly and some annually (with the annual returns due Jan. 31, 2017), we received a limited number of first quarter returns out of the total number of businesses engaged in activity subject to this tax.”
"The City believes releasing any information at this time about the number of filers or amount reported would risk revealing identifying taxpayer information..."—email from City of Seattle
Then the message used exactly the same language contained in replies to MyNorthwest.com and TheGunMag.com to explain its refusal to disclose the first quarter revenue. SAF’s Alan Gottlieb told Examiner that he is willing to take the city to court over the issue.
“Looks like we’ll have to go to court to force Seattle to release the real information,” Gottlieb said. “It won’t be the first time the Second Amendment Foundation has challenged Seattle’s failure to disclose public information. To settle our last suit for non-disclosure they had to pay us $38,000.”
In early 2013, SAF sued the city over failure to properly disclose documents related to the botched “gun buyback” under former Mayor Mike McGinn. In December 2013, the city settled that lawsuit for the aforementioned $38,000, and in April 2014, the Washington Coalition for Open Government awarded SAF for its action.
The city has also had to pay the Seattle Times in a separate legal action involving that newspaper’s request for information from the police department. Gottlieb, at the time SAF won its settlement, observed that the city should have learned from its experience with the Times lawsuit.
During his Friday monologue, KIRO’s Monson speculated that the city is reluctant to reveal its first quarter gun tax revenue because it falls far short of expectations.
“I’m guessing because it is an embarrassingly small amount of money,” he said on air.
The city’s reluctance to disclose its first quarter gun tax revenue could lead to further speculation that the tax was actually aimed at simply chasing firearms dealers out of the city. Critics might consider that discriminatory.
http://www.examiner.com/article/what-seattle-isn-t-saying-about-gun-tax-may-speak-volumes
