North Carolina's Tax Problem
Over time it will become clear to them that the real reason that their taxes are going up is so that the taxes of big corporations and the wealthy can be kept down.
If you've spent any time reading commentary and reports by the N.C. Budget and Tax Center, you probably already know that North Carolina's tax structure is a shaky house of cards. And if you need any convincing, just read Elaine Mejia's post at NC Policy Watch today. Elaine makes a compelling case that North Carolina is headed dangerously in the wrong direction when it comes to revenues - and that the sh*t is going to hit the fan pretty darn soon. Which should come as no surprise to anyone who's been watching. NC Senators like Walter Dalton and Kay Hagan have been working hard to make life cushier for wealthy business interests, all the while burdening poor and moderate income families with a flurry of regressive tax policies.
Yet, when most state lawmakers are on the campaign trail they herald new investments like raising teacher pay or expanding children's health insurance. They talk very little about the critical services that are underfunded in North Carolina like mental health and the court system. It is much easier and politically expedient to tell people about a few "successes" than to tell voters what is really happening.
- James Protzman's blog
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Our revenue system is in dire need of an overhaul
We need to expand our sales tax base to include services, drop the sales tax on food, lower our reliance on personal income taxes and do away with corporate tax breaks. If we were to expand the sales tax base to include certain services, we could lower the overall sales tax rate to about 5 percent while also generating more sales tax revenue for the state and local governments.
We should just lower the overall corporate rate to about 3 percent and then get rid of all the loopholes and deductions and exemptions. We also need to adopt a combined reporting approach so that big companies can't shelter their profits in other states to avoid paying taxes on the monies they earn here.
Here is an excellent report on how companies shift profits around to low-tax states to avoid paying their "fair share" of taxes. This report also explains why combined reporting is a good idea.
Click here
If we did all these things, then we would have a revenue system that would be better suited to a 21st century economy. But fat chance of any of this happening with the current lot we have in the General Assembly. I don't think I've ever seen a bigger group of gutless "leaders" in my life.
Just look at what they've done the last two years! They capped the gas tax and reduced the sales tax by a quarter-penny, then declared they didn't have any money! Somebody should have had the guts to stand up and say, 'We can't afford to cap the gas tax now because we have some of the most poorly maintained and highly congested roads in the country, we've got 4 million people heading our way in the next two decades, and the gas tax is a primary funding source for our roads.' And somebody else should have said, 'We can't reduce the sales tax by a quarter penny because we need that $250 million a year it generates to provide such much-needed funding to our court system, which needs jail space, probation officers, judges and courtrooms to help ensure public safety, and our mental health system also needs some additional funds to provide critical services to our most at-risk citizens.'
Instead, the Dems caved to public pressure and went along with these cuts - all because it sounded good in an election year.
Capitalism
Results continue to confirm that US style criminal capitalism is as unsustainable as it is inequitable. The signature failure of capitalism when coupled with a fraudulent/criminal regime results in massive transfer of public wealth into the pockets of the politically connected at the expense of the general public. The time for a paradigm shift is long overdue.
gw bush hates the internet because Al Gore INVENTED IT!