Poacher caught - again!

[Swimmer]

Originally Posted by numbskull

A lot of what you post is self-serving, but this is ridiculous.

You make a profit in MA commercial fishing and you take it home with you.......otherwise you wouldn't be here. If you are as good as you make yourself out to be, then it is not a small profit either. That money benefits the state you spend it in. Presumably you pay taxes on it (although I'd bet many guys don't) and use the rest for your family's living expenses. That money in turn gets taxed and spent by others where you live (multiplier effect). If a million dollars leaves MA it results in several million dollars of lost economic activity. That is money that could be helping the people of MA.

So explain to me again how it is in the State's interest to allow out of state utilization of our commercial quota?

How many products are made in Jersey and shipped up here for sale. Its no different than any other interstate commerce. Protected under federal law.

[JohnnyD]

Originally Posted by Swimmer

How many products are made in Jersey and shipped up here for sale. Its no different than any other interstate commerce. Protected under federal law.

There is no limit on those sales. The government can't go up to Apple and say "hey, you can only sell 2 million laptops tp Massachusetts and 4 million iPhones to New Jersey this year and then you're shut down."

On the other hand, and I think this is numbskull's point which I agree with, the government tells the commercial fishing sector that they can only catch so many lbs of fish. As such, there is a limit to how much money will be made from selling fish. By MA allowing out-of-state people to comm fish here, those people get paid by our local markets, and then they take that money to their home state to be used in the local economies of NY or NJ or wherever, as opposed to being used locally in our state.

If a MA market pays a MA fisherman $1000 for his catch, then the fisherman later uses that money to buy his local coffee at the mom and pop shop, at RedTop for extra tackle/bait and to pay his rent. That money stays locally, helps local businesses and is taxed locally.

On the other hand, if that same $1000 is paid to a NY fisherman, then that money leaves the state with him to stimulate *their* local economy as opposed to the benefits being preserved here.

This is like a micro version of our national trade situation. Every dollar we Americans use for imported goods is a dollar that stops being utilized domestically. With the current state of our economy and the number of people without jobs, every little bit helps.

[Mike P]

Ideally, commercial licenses would only be renewed by filing a 1040/1099 indicating that at least 50% of the taxpayers' gross income was derived from the sale of fish. That's the way it has always been in NY and some other states that issue commercial licenses.

I also wonder how many non-residents are filing Mass tax returns. I have always had to file returns in every state in which I have earned income. Some markets pay by check--some pay by cash. My sense is a lot of cash transactions don't get reported to any state, or to the IRS.

I have no problems with reciprocity--but to me, the height of idiocy is Mass issuing licenses to anglers who either reside in gamefish states, or who live in grandfathered states where Mass anglers either couldn't get a license at all, or couldn't get bass tags.

I also have no problem with Mass grandfathering existing licenses to out-of-staters, but issuing new licenses to people who live in states where we can't get a commercial license is wrong.

It's a different game now, with ASMFC and hard commercial quotas. Mass is doing its full time commercials a disservice. DMF cares more about licensing fees than its own resident commercials who actually make a living from the sea. And that is wrong, any way you slice it.

I'm not pointing fingers at anyone who plays by the rules. Report your catches, pay your taxes, and my problem isn't with you--it's with the rule makers.