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:
Call the Governor's office:
From HSUS Humane Action Alert:
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
4 comments:
I followed your instructions and it was very easy! I encourage all readers to call and oppose this ridiculous bill.
Thanks for the alert, I called earlier today and also posted it in my blog with a link back to y'all.
http://www.generationv.org/hear-mite-roar
I'm going to email my vet about this, too.
I hope the Veterinary Associations are lobbying against this!
Tammy
I called & couldn't leave a message, but could vote "no".
I didn't realize at first how detrimental this will be to animal welfare, especially as the economy gets worse.
There is a serious budget crisis happening, I understand. I think we should tax the higher income brackets, not HEALTH SERVICES!
It's outrageous to some, but our pets are our children.
While I am not a California resident, this proposal gives me the willies. If this passes, it will be no time at all that the rest of the states will follow suit in order to raise money. This is NOT a luxury. We spend our hard earned bucks to take care of our pets and taxing the cost will just create more of an issue for folks who cannot afford care now.
This is an outrage.
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