Accepting Credit When Credit Is Due . . .

But if you are going to jerk around your fares, at least make sure you first check the name on the card:

Cabdrivers are flouting a new law by throwing up roadblocks to frustrated riders who try to pay with plastic, the Taxi and Limousine Commission chairman said yesterday.

The problem is so widespread, one dishonest hack even tried to refuse the TLC chairman’s credit card.

“It is going to give the industry a black eye,” chairman Matthew Daus told cab-company owners at a monthly TLC meeting.

Daus said that during his ride, a cabby hit a button on the meter from the front seat that selected cash for him. When the commissioner complained that he wanted to pay with his credit card, the driver said it was too late.

The TLC has since changed the meters so that taxi drivers cannot make a selection between cash and credit from the front seat, but drivers continue to insist their credit-card machines are broken.

“It’s just plain wrong,” Daus said yesterday. “This is just breaking the law.”

So then there must be something to those accusations . . .

Just Say It — Say It! — “The Fare Will Go Up”

The MTA board is getting ready to vote on a giant subway fare hike (don’t listen to Governor Spitzer!):

The base fare may still be $2, but the 86 percent of subway and bus riders getting discounts will face higher costs under the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s revised fare proposal unveiled yesterday.

MTA chief Elliot Sander said the latest plan is the result of a “balancing act,” weighing concerns for low-income riders who rely on the cash fare against the need to provide discounts for regular customers.

The biggest hit goes to the 30-day unlimited MetroCard, which will climb five bucks to $81. Seven-day cards will go up to $25, but a new 14-day pass will cost $47, or a buck less than two current weekly passes.

The popular 20 percent bonus on pay-per-ride cards will be cut to 15 percent, but the buy-in will be $7 instead of $10. The average fare on the bonus cards will be $1.74, up from $1.67.

Meanwhile, the issue of who benefits most (ahem, tourists) from keeping the fare low gets murkier:

But some people can’t calculate savings into any fare increase. Many lower-income straphangers buy a weekly pass because that’s all they can cobble together at once, Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign said. Under the new hike proposal they’re getting the worst deal.

“Sometimes when I don’t even have the money for the weekly pass, I buy the $10 card,” said Melinda Joseph, a 22-year-old who studies and works at a midtown Dunkin’ Donuts. “Now I might get my boyfriend to drive me to school.”

Christmas Tree Prices Loonie This Year

Weak dollar and rising energy costs have hit the city’s Christmas tree industry hard:

Christmas trees cost up to 30 percent more than they did last year at Manhattan’s sidewalk tree vendors. “It is the perfect storm; everything is closing in on us at once,” says Scott Lechner, owner of the Manhattan-based Christmas Co., which has three stands. One popular tree variety is the Fraser fir, but it’s grown in the Southeast, where a record-setting drought has cut into available supplies. The main alternative is the Balsam fir, most of which are trucked to New York from Canada. The surging value of the Canadian dollar makes those trees more expensive, and higher oil prices make it cost more both to transport the trees from Canada and run the generators that power their sidewalk stands.

Spitzer The Ankle Byter . . .

Elliot Spitzer learns the hard way that executive experience is not at all like the “rollicking discussions” he once enjoyed as a youth around his parents’ dinner table. Less than a day — or if you believe the Sun, just hours — after details emerge about the governor’s proposed Amazon tax, he clumsily retreats:

In a second major policy reversal in less than a day, Governor Spitzer is backing down from a plan to require Amazon.com and other online retailers to charge state and local sales taxes on all purchases from New York.

Yesterday, just hours after The New York Sun reported on the new revenue collection scheme, the Spitzer administration announced that it was burying it for the time being — at least until after the Christmas shopping season. The move saved New York City shoppers from having to pay an additional 8.375% on many Amazon.com goods.

“Governor Spitzer believes that now is not the right time to be increasing sales taxes on New Yorkers,” Mr. Spitzer’s budget director, Paul Francis, said in a statement. “He has directed the Department of Tax and Finance to pull back its interpretation that would require some Internet retailers that do not collect sales tax to do so.”

The turnabout came just hours after Mr. Spitzer said he was dropping his plan to allow illegal immigrants in New York to obtain driver’s licenses.

In this latest instance, Mr. Spitzer wasted little time before pulling the plug on another controversial policy, aborting it before it threatened to snowball into a distraction for his administration.

And do you really believe this part?

Mr. Francis, in an interview, said the governor was unaware of the new tax policy, which the tax department quietly issued with a memorandum on Friday. It was supposed to go into effect next month, in time for the holiday shopping rush.

“The governor really wasn’t aware of this. My focus is to raise revenue, and the governor has a broader perspective,” Mr. Francis said. “It’s a big government, and in hindsight, we probably should have made sure he focused on it. It’s one of those things, so you live and learn.”

And a new political axiom is born: if there’s one thing the netroots hate, it’s taxing crap they buy on Amazon (and all for a lousy $100 million . . . that’s somehow using political capital wisely?).

Spitzer Does Things On His (One) Terms!

Get rid of one problem and take on another that will surely boost those sagging numbers:

New Yorkers going Christmas shopping online at Amazon.com will find an 8.375% surprise at the virtual cash register, courtesy of Governor Spitzer, who is moving aggressively to collect Internet sales taxes that have gone widely unenforced.

Under a new policy, major electronic retailers, such as Amazon.com, will be required to collect sales tax on all purchases from New York. The policy, based on a novel legal theory, could hasten the end of the Internet’s era as a duty-free marketplace if other states follow New York’s lead. With the policy, New York immediately took the lead among states that are seeking to tax online commerce.

“I’d say this puts us at the front,” one state tax official, who requested anonymity, told The New York Sun.

Having pledged not to raise taxes, Mr. Spitzer is increasingly scrounging for ways to close a projected $4.3 billion deficit next year. State officials estimate that this latest initiative, which goes into effect in December, will bring in about $100 million more each year, split between state and local government tax revenue. Statewide, the sales tax averages about 8%, although in New York City it is 8.375%.

. . .

When it comes to charging sales tax, e-retailers have been held to the same old standard that the U.S. Supreme Court set for mail-order vendors: The seller only needs to collect the tax on purchases in states where the vendor has a physical presence, such as a storefront or salesman. New York is saying that it has found a way around that obstacle to tax collection. Many e-retailers may have unwittingly lost their exemption because of the way they direct traffic to their Web sites, according to a tax memo recently released by the state’s tax department.

At issue is the “affiliate program” used by many e-retailers. Web site operators can provide a link to an e-retailer in return for a commission on any sale resulting from customers using the link. While the affiliate program may consist of little more than a non-descript advertisement on the computer screen, the tax consequences may be huge: New York state says it is the equivalent of having an instate salesperson.

“It’s just treating the affiliate the same way we would treat any other type of sales representative,” Mr. Spitzer’s budget director, Paul Francis, said in an interview.