In the class action suit of Steele v. the United States, the Court ruled that the IRS would be required to return an estimated $270 million in “user fees” charged to American tax preparers.
Whether its shutting down a lemonade stand or handcuffing teens whose only crime was selling water bottles, the state is holding back the most economically vulnerable from rising above their situations.
Sherry Japhet breaks the law each time she applies makeup to an Idaho client. That’s why Japhet found true irony in being asked to provide makeup services to Idaho's First Lady, whose husband recently vetoed a bill that would have made it legal for Japhet to do his wife's makeup.
Tucked away in the Rocky Mountains, the state of Utah is known as the industrious beehive state because of its tradition of hard work. While other states have been quick to shut down children wanting to learn about the free market, Utah has taken preemptive measures to protect minors in their quest to earn money.
As President of the Libertas Institute, Connor Boyack put it, “Let’s at least give kids a taste of the free market before the crushing bureaucracy weighs in upon them.”
Recently, a local Alabama news station reported that a lawn service was threatening to report a teenager to the city because an ordinance apparently requires lawn-mowing teenagers to procure a business license. It seems ridiculous but stories like these can show everyone the serious problems with occupational licensing in general.
In his video entitled, Nick Offerman's 'The Offerman Distillery', the actor attempts to open his own distillery but soon learns that the government requires an occupational permit in order to do so. Confused and irritated that opening a distillery is such a monstrous bureaucratic feat, Offerman highlights one of the most frustrating forms of government red tape, preventing otherwise productive individuals from earning an honest living.
When certain groups win favors from politicians at the expense of everyone else, it is an especially harsh affront to the economic freedom of the poor. When policy drives prices up, especially in the case of commodities, the higher prices are most difficult for the poor, who are already stretched thin, to absorb.
Through occupational licensing, politicians get to impose “fees” in exchange for letting people practice their professions. And interest groups get to impose barriers that limit competition, a win-win situation, unless you are taxpayer or a consumer. Or a poor person who wants to get a job.
In their latest book, William Mellor and Dick Carpenter from the Institute for Justice describe how special interests game the government for power and profit. Fortunately, the "bottleneckers" are losing in courts and in legislatures.
There's no evidence that occupational licensing achieves its stated objectives and abundant evidence that it harms labor mobility and low-income entrepreneurship. Here are some better solutions that would actually work.
