Anyhoo... just saw this reported on the Animal Place blog. I'm off to go call Arnold! Fellow Californians, please join me. This would be disastrous for animal rescue organizations, as well as an unnecessary burden on everyday people who are already having a hard enough time putting food on the table in these tough times. We already know that animal relinquishments to shelters are skyrocketing due to this darn economy; I can only imagine how much worse it might get if caring for our companion animals becomes even more costly.
CA: Don't tax vet bills
Governor Schwarzenegger wants to define taking your sick, diseased, distressed animal to a vet as a "luxury" item, imposing a 10.5% tax on veterinary medical services.
Since when is being a responsible guardian considered a "luxury"?
There are 15 million dogs and cats in California and dog and cat guardians spend nearly 2.75 billion dollars on veterinary services. Animal Place is no stranger to vet bills - we spend tens of thousands of dollars a year to provide optimal care to all the animals at the sanctuary. This isn't a luxury, these costs are a necessity for us and for the millions of people who choose to welcome animals into their homes.
We appreciate that times are tough, that we need to look at creative ways to stimulate our state's economy. But taxing necessary medical care for the 15 + million animals in the state is not only unfair, it's cruel. With unemployment rising, people should not have to make a difficult choice between what might be an affordable medical procedure for their companion and killing/relinquishing their animal because of the extra taxation.
You can help:
Please make a brief, polite phone call to Governor Schwarzenegger at 916-445-2841 and urge him to remove the Fido Fine from the budget proposal. When you call, please select your language choice, then press 5 to leave your opinion on a current issue, then press 1 to select the issue of extending the sales tax to veterinary services, and then press 2 to oppose this proposal. After calling, please send a follow-up email to your state legislators and urge them to reject the Governor’s proposal.
Contact your representative; tell them to remove the Fido fine from the budget proposal. (You can find out who your legislator is here.)
3 comments:
No way! This is just unreal Tamara, and it makes me so sad. This is not a luxury!
Up here, we pay a 5% Federal (GST) tax on all vet services, and people in other Canadian provinces have a provincial tax (from 8 to 9% roughly, depending on the province) to pay on top of that.
We have no provincial tax here in Alberta - thankfully.
Vet bills are high enough as it is, having to pay tax on top makes things even more difficult :(
Tamara! I know I'm in Vermont but I was going to call anyway and leave my opinion about the higher tax on vet bills (Luxury, are they kidding?). So I did as you said, hit 1 for english then 5 for the issues, then it asked me to hit 1 if I was calling about the Vet proposal. THEN it asked me to hit 1 if I was in approval or 2 if I was against it. I thought I was going to be able to leave a message but it just said "thanks for calling the Gov's office, good bye" and it hung up on me. I'm not sure if it hung up on me because it recorded my "Yay or Nay" and that's all it was designed to do, or perhaps the mailbox is full, or perhaps the system saw I was calling from an 802 area code... but just in case I was SUPPOSED to have been able to leave a voice message, I just wanted to be sure you knew the darn thing is hanging up on folks.
Well Kerri, you actually got further than I did - it didn't even let me say 'yay' or 'nay' before it said 'thank you for calling the governor's office; good bye.' Sucks!
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