Via Black Velvet Bruce Li comes news of what has to be the most extreme example of the “temporary” tax that will not die:

One instance of bad public policy which can do harm is the Business Professional and Occupational License (BPOL) tax thatâ€™s imposed on entrepreneurs by Virginia localities.Â It was enacted in order to offset public expenditures by these localities incurred during the War Of 1812, and like many â€œtemporary revenue enhancementsâ€ has lived on into near immortality.Â This confusing law and the local ordinances which determine tax rates and revenues subject to this tax make complying with this law nearly as cumbersome as the requirement to actually pay the tax.Â The effect is to discourage the development of small businesses.

In case you haven’t gotten the memo, the War of 1812 ended 193 years ago. While I have no direct evidence of how much money Virginia localities contributed to pay for that war, I’m pretty sure they’ve been reimbursed, in full, with interest by now.Â If nothing else, Virginia’s BPOL, and the fact that it has resisted any effort to repeal it for almost two centuries, stands as evidence that there is no such thing as a temporary tax.