rent seeking behavior -the final frontier

[Dynamite Bob]

Tuesday July 10 10:11 AM EDT 

         L.A. County Targets Satellites in
         Out-of-This-World Tax Plan

         By NANCY VOGEL, TIMES STAFF WRITER

         SACRAMENTO -- Los Angeles County officials, realizing that
there is no tax
         collector in outer space, hope to fill the void.

         Reaching 22,300 miles above the equator, boldly going where no
tax collector
         has gone before, Los Angeles County Assessor Rick Auerbach is
angling to
         impose property taxes on several satellites.

         Though never done before in California, the move is legal, say
state and
         county tax attorneys. That's because, they say, nobody else is
taxing the
         satellites and they are valuable property owned by a Los
Angeles
         County-based company. Worth as much as $100 million each to
Hughes
         Electronics in El Segundo, the satellites could bring in
millions of dollars a
         year in taxes to schools and government.

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/latimes/20010710/lo/l_a_county_targets_satellites_in_out-of-this-world_tax_plan_1.html