Thanks to its lenient shoplifting laws, California (or, as I think of it, Commiefornia) is almost certainly losing substantial revenue.  Yet the same state that fanatically collects vehicle registration fees seems unperturbed by these other losses.

In Arizona, the sales tax is called a "transaction privilege tax," and retail businesses are required to collect that tax when selling taxable items if they are to keep their business license.  (Yes, the sales tax is really called a "transaction privilege tax.")  State sales tax, when combined with city or town taxes and any other local entities that join the sales tax grift, usually total more than 10% in most communities.  One of the local small cities even charges a 3-percent sales tax on otherwise tax-exempt groceries.

The merchants' obligation to fund the government with every sale of taxable goods leads me to conclude that when a thief steals from the retailer, not only is the retailer taking a loss, but so are the government entities that do not receive their taxes.  In Commiefornia, the law allows shoplifters to steal up to $950's worth of merchandise in a single "shopping" spree.  No sales tax is collected.  Isn't that some sort of tax evasion?  Or theft of tax dollars?

This is a rather bizarre omission on the state's part.  As a political refugee and former retail business owner from the rapidly failing state of Commiefornia, I can assure the reader that my previous home state will go to the ends of the Earth to collect money it believes it is owed.

Image: Credit card machine by photoroyalty.

Case in point: After moving to Arizona, we happily and giddily tossed our auto registration renewal fee notices from California's DMV into the trash.  We had already quickly registered and insured our vehicles in Arizona to disguise our origins from the locals, wrongly thinking we were free from the DMV's ridiculously high registration taxes.

Commiefornia was not going to let us get away that easily with ignoring its demands to pay the vehicle license fees.  About a year after relocating, we received at our Arizona address a nasty letter from the DMV, along with voter registration forms, demanding proof that we had registered and insured our four vehicles and three trailers in our new home state before our California registrations expired.  Otherwise, we would be required to register our vehicles, complete with exorbitant late penalties.  Failing that, California would place liens on the real property we still owned there.

Complying with their proof of registration and insurance demands took my wife all day.  Worse, the required proof had to be mailed back with seven separate change of address forms, one for each vehicle or trailer, per their instructions — even though the DMV clearly already had our new address.  Apparently, multitasking skills are not a requirement to work at the CA DMV.

The CA DMV registration fees for my 1991 F350 truck were triple what they are in Arizona, to give just one example of the exorbitant fees California charges.  Therefore, we requested that California refund the unused portions of our registration fees, which amounted to hundreds of dollars.  Other states will do that for their expatriates.

The silence was deafening.  Money travels in only one direction in Commiefornia unless you are an illegal alien; then the "benefits" are endless.  I don't miss Commiefornia at all.

But I'm still wondering why Commiefornia doesn't go after retail shoplifters for evading taxes as hard as they went after us for vehicle license fees.  Heck, they won't even prosecute thieves for shoplifting.  Maybe they will start going after the retailers for the uncollected sales taxes lost due to theft, furthering the state's accelerating decline.  I wouldn't put it past them.