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February 23, 2012 2:08 PM
- Two of the country’s largest Big Box retailers, Target and Best Buy, are turning up the pressure on their home state of Minnesota’s legislators to pass a law requiring online businesses to collect sales taxes. Republican lawmakers are divided over the issue because some see the so-called “Amazon” tax as a tax increase which they adamantly oppose. One Republican House member, however, came up with a compromise: use the revenue gained from taxing internet sales to pay for an “outdoors, guns, and ammo” sales tax holiday. Huh?
- The Idaho Mountain Express editorial board gets it right when it opines against Governor Otter’s proposal to cut taxes by $45 million, “just when things are looking up, would any sensible family insist that its wage earners take jobs that pay less? That’s absurd and so are the proposed tax cuts.”
- In the refreshing news department, the former CEO of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce comes out against a business tax credit bill saying, “credits like those proposed in House Bill 868 could inadvertently undermine our state’s economy by diverting revenue from equally essential investments.” Here’s another gem, “To thrive, businesses large and small need a well-educated workforce, good transportation systems to facilitate their supply-chain, and stable, safe neighborhoods for employees and customers. They also need customers with sufficient income to buy their goods and services, something that tax credits cannot assist.” We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.
- The Orlando Sentinel wisely editorializes against Florida lawmakers cutting state revenues to cities and counties. “[C]utting taxes is easy; paying for it is hard,” they write. “And lawmakers have been dumping much of that dirty work on local government leaders.” A former mayor now in the state legislature is quoted: “We’re trying to take credit for cutting taxes when we’re, in essence, really just telling somebody else, ‘You need to cut.'”