This is what Media Bias Looks Like

Big Tent Democrat posting at Talkleft, states, "Only a right wing ideologue could write about the Media's left bias."

 ROTFLMAO, I ponder if a fish knows it's wet. I'm sure Big Tent Democrat (lawyer Armando Llorens) is well read and well educated, so I can only assume he doesn't know what left bias looks like. So here's a quick example from local news last week. This story was carried by both 9 News and the Denver Post:

 DENVER - Records show one of Colorado's largest trucking companies has been licensing most of its fleet out of state for 13 years to avoid paying Colorado sales taxes and emissions fees.

The practice by Western Distributing Transportation Corp. has cost Colorado millions of dollars in sales tax during the state's worst budget crisis in decades, according to a 9Wants to Know investigation.

Whether or not this is against rules and regulations is still being determined.

"If Colorado wants the business, they need to change the law and change it to a responsible fee and a bunch of us Colorado carriers would be glad to move it back to Colorado. But Colorado has priced themselves out of it," said Dino Guadagni, vice president of Western Distributing.

Western Distributing opened for business in 1933 and maintains a fleet of 235 trucks and 345 trailers at its headquarters on York Street in Denver. While the signs on the truck doors say Denver, Colorado, their license plates say Wyoming.

Where to start on this nasty little piece of reporting? I'll note the use of the word cost, as if unpaid revenue is an expense to the state. More:

According to the Colorado Motor Carriers Association, it cost $11,749 for a new truck tractor in Colorado, or twice as much as Wyoming, which cost $5,559. The association also claims that Colorado has the highest sales tax of any surrounding state.

"I love this state but I'm not going to overpay for what's not duly owed to them," Guadagni said.

However, IRP officials in Wyoming and Colorado say that the company is breaking the spirit of the trucking regulation, if not the actual regulations themselves. Wyoming is conducting an audit of the company to see if it's legally allowed to license its fleet in Wyoming.

"It is absolutely not the intent of the IRP to allow somebody to go to a foreign jurisdiction and rent a little room and put a temporary employee... with a phone or a fax that is transferred to another location in another state," said Jaki Berry, the IRP program manager for the Colorado Department of Revenue. "That is not the intent behind what we are doing."

Naturally the IRP program manager doesn't want anyone losing tax revenue. Note no one knows if the trucking company has done anything illegal, it's just that the state of Colorado wants the money. Most importantly, the tax rates are arbitrary and do not reflect any expense to the state, as evidenced by the disparity of rates between the states. Does anyone believe a truck in Wyoming costs half as much road expense as Colorado? You would think the numbers would be reversed due to poulation density.

 Why would 9 News think they need to 'investigate' the trucking company for doing something legal? More:

The company has been paying ownership taxes and registration fees to Colorado through an apportionment plan set forth by the IRP. Wyoming collects those fees and then distributes a percentage back to any state depending on the number of miles the trucks have driven there.

However, because the company is licensing in Wyoming, it has not been paying Colorado sales, RTD and local taxes, or title and emissions fees on its 235 trucks or power units. The company has also not been paying registration fees, sales tax or annual ownership taxes for its 345 trailers to Colorado.

"What they're doing is basically looking for a tax haven. They've turned Wyoming into a St. Kitts apparently," Carroll said. "They're making money here and they're using our roads and putting a burden on our roads and we should not have to pay for their desire to find a safe tax haven."

Carroll says Colorado really could have used the company's tax money over the past few years.

"We have 126 bridges that are completely unsafe and dangerous, much like the bridge in Minneapolis that fell about two or three years ago," Carroll said. "I would like for them to pay their taxes here... like they're supposed to."

This story came to 9NEWS through a newstip.

Gotta love that last line. Couldn't be anyone with the state trying to do some arm twisting via the media.

 But we read there that the company pays for its mileage, and we can assume they pay fuel tax as well. It's far from established that the company isn't paying its own way on Colorado roads.

 This story could have been written with an entirely different bias, with a headline like 'Colorado Trucking Company Finds Shelter in Wyoming,' subheaded 'Usurious tax rates in Colorado force company to look for loopholes.'

 So we see here a general leftist bias to the story, including pro tax, anti business, and pro bureaucrat elements.  They imply that whatever arbitrary tax the government decides to enact creates a moral obligation on the part of the citizenry to pay - apart even from a legal obligation to pay it. Does anyone disagree that constitutes a bias?

 Here's my bias - kudos to Wyoming in creating some competitive tax rates.