Today I got this release from the S.C. Chamber of Commerce:
Urge Your House Member to Vote for Comprehensive Tax Reform
Debate Expected This Week!Thank you for contacting your House members over the past few weeks urging them to move forward on comprehensive tax reform. Your calls have made a difference in the debate! The House is expected to take up the legislation either Tuesday or Wednesday of this week.
Today, please again contact your House member and ask them to:
- Amend S.12/H.3415 to contain a comprehensive (holistic) approach to tax reform. A complete analysis of taxes should be performed and not looked at individually. The business community is fearful that if a comprehensive approach is not taken, a huge cost shift to the business community, similar to Act 388 (Residential Property Tax Relief), could occur again.
- The approach needs to examine state and local taxes including: county, municipal, special purpose districts and schools.
Contact your House member today! Click here for contact information, or click here to find your legislator.
That’s all well and good, and I’m with the Chamber on this. The State‘s editorial Sunday did a good job of explaining just what a hash lawmakers have made of the chances for real tax reform. (Two big problems: They want the big tax swap of 2006 that was so awful that it prompted what momentum exists for reform to be off limits, and they don’t want to require a vote on the final product, which is essential.) But I’m ever hopeful, and if contacting my House member will help, I’m all for it.
One problem: The release went on to tell me my representative was James Smith. But I live in Ted Pitts’ district. I’ll be glad to speak to Capt. Smith, but I don’t see how it will help…
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My representative James Smith seems to be on the same page as I am all the time anyway. Too bad he isn’t aiming for higher office….
I’m sure he’s on the same page as you and I anyway, so reach out to Rep. Pitts….
Are you trying to tell us that the supporters of so-called “tax reform” do not already have all the details written down?
Show us what it is they want to pass.
Then tell us why the items, if they are so good, cannot be passed on their own.
They have been talking this game for years. So far, they have revealed no details of the changes they seek. It has just been a stalling tactic to block separate, real reforms.
Any tax reform that allows the budget to be immune from the actual economy is not tax reform. The government should react to the same
fluctuations in the economy as its citizens and businesses do. We don’t need tax reform, we need spending reform. Start with a balanced budget amendment and include absolute limits on the growth of government.
My ideal tax reform package would include eliminating all home property taxes and replacing them with flat per-dwelling fees (if it works for trash pickup, why can’t it work for fire, police, parks, libraries, and schools?). Everyone pays the same for the same services. Next would be a flat income tax with one tax rate – 5% for all income above three times the state poverty level. No deductions, no filing, no bureaucracy. Third, a state sales tax of 5% with no exclusions (like newspapers), no 1/2% off if you’re 85 stupidity, no caps for cars (but only tax new cars – not resales); allow local option sales taxes up to 2% with the money going directly to schools; Fourth, a gas tax with all revenue going directly to building and maintaining roads; Fifth – eliminate all property taxes on cars, boats, etc. Once you own something, the government should have no ability to lay any claim to it.
And finally, remove any legal impediments that exist right now that prevent counties from implementing impact fees for new development.
Once that is in place, let the politicians fight over how to spend the money. If they spend it on a 150 year old submarine, that’s too bad. If they spend it on the Okra Strut, that’s too bad. We need to limit both the revenue as well as the ability to create new taxes.
Even Obama pulled a publicity stunt to call for a pathetic $100 million reduction in department budgets from his $4 TRILLION spending plan.
Bobby Harrell and the rest of the legislature needs to look at that crowd that was in front of the State House last week, demonstrating against taking the Pelosi Stimulus Pork money.
Guys, the idea here is to have something on the order of a BRAC commission that would redo the whole structure from top to bottom, and the Legislature would have to either approve or reject it.
The reason this idea emerged was that it was so obvious that the Legislature would never fix the system itself, but merely add to its complexity by passing laws to benefit whichever interest group was yelling at them loudest at a given moment.
The final straw for many was the 2006 law that essentially eliminated school operating taxes on owner-occupied homes, and jacked sales taxes way up to make up for it — yet did essentially nothing to improve the way funds are distributed to districts. (The one advantage to funding schools through a state sales tax rather than a local property tax would be funding parity, but lawmakers were uninterested in that.)
This proposal appeared to have legs going into this session largely BECAUSE of that 2006 mess — especially among business types. Business — from big bidness down to someone who rents out the house they inherited from Grandma — has been increasingly shafted on property taxes over the years because of lawmakers’ eagerness to give homeowners whatever they asked for (homeowners who lived on rapidly appreciating property, that is), and the 2006 swap was sort of the last straw for them.
And yet, now lawmakers are talking about EXEMPTING that mess from being considered by the commission. Between that and the Senate’s refusal to require lawmakers to vote on the eventual plan effectively make the legislation pretty much worthless.
If you’re not going to consider the WHOLE system — especially the sacred cows — then there’s not much point. And if lawmakers are going to ignore the result, the way they have the results of every other tax study for the last 20 years — then forget about it.
Any legislator who is unable to perform their job, and wants to push it off on a commission, is unfit to hold office. They need to resign.
Unless any tax study commission has at least half of the members from real tax reformers, like the Libertarian Party, SC Taxpayers, and the like, it will end up being special interest groups cutting deals with each other.
This whole excuse of having to reform the system all at once is a stalling tactic. Some reforms are obvious. There is no excuse for not cleaning up things like the sales tax exemptions and corrupt practices of the Dept of Revenue right now.
I am more for cleaning up the whole system than anyone who would be put on a commission. Everything must be on the table. Start with no spending and no taxes. Every item added must be unanimously approved by the commission or legislative committee. That is your core government, all the people really need.