Kudos to Sue Shaw for her letter “Lunch tax disgraceful” (BDN, March 19). She wondered how many $5 meals, taxed at 5 percent, it would take to cover the $56 million squandered by the Department of Health and Human Services in the MaineCare electronic payment debacle. The state sales tax auditors only need to find 224 million more untaxed meals to cover the shortfall.

But don’t worry, they have help. The state unemployment tax auditors are running around driving small contractors out of business by reclassifying all their subcontractors as employees and charging back unemployment taxes.

The state income tax auditors are busy reclassifying nonresidents as residents and charging back income taxes, penalties and interest. Apparently if you drove through the state anytime in the past 50 years you qualify as a resident. This may be a slight exaggeration, but the fact is the state of Maine has become an out of control money sucking beast, devouring every dollar in its path.

Ms. Shaw also mentioned that no one has been fired, reprimanded, demoted or sued for the MaineCare debacle. I might add that I have not seen any discussion of any investigation for criminal negligence. The attorney general should get off the stick and start a criminal investigation going all the way to the top.

Mark Chellis

Hampden