Kentucky currently has an illogical tax structure that’s highly dependent on income taxes and less so on sales and property taxes, especially at the local level. The disproportionate nature of income taxes to property taxes in Kentucky -- especially relative to border states -- favors people who hold their wealth as property and hurts people whose main source of wealth is their human capital.
Kentucky’s tax structure actually mitigates its own efforts to attract hi-tech businesses and young, highly educated workers. After all, who wants to see their individual or corporate earnings taxed excessively?
As a rule of thumb, local economic activity is more sensitive to changes in state taxes than federal taxes, in part due to the interstate mobility of capital and labor. For example, when given a choice, high income households choose to live in our border states that tend to have lower income taxes. This is particularly true along our Tennessee border.
A report done by The Beacon Hill Institute suggests that had several states applied a state FairTax, in contrast to their current system, they would have experienced tremendous growth in employment numbers and real gross annual wage rates between 2005-2009.
For example, employment in the border states of Illinois and Virginia grew by more than 15 percent in both of these states; real gross annual wage rates grew by 3.7 percent and 6.2 percent in Virginia and Illinois, respectively. It seems likely that Kentucky could experience similar strong growth if we emulated their tax policies in this regard.
While the tax structure in Kentucky is not the only thing keeping citizens from moving here, it sure isn’t helping matters. The idea of a state-level FairTax may be the ticket to attracting businesses and educated workers to the commonwealth by creating jobs and improving earnings.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Revamping Kentucky's tax structure: FairTax worth considering
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Why does your so-called "fair tax" not include a tax on the movement of money? What about investment income? What about the buyng and selling of stocks, bonds, futures? What about the buying and selling of race horses? What about bets on race horses or on-line poker playing?
Why is your focus so much on sales and property taxes?
I realize that you don't like the revolutionary values and ideas of our nation's founders, but why not a proportional rate tax on the movement of all money? That's consistent with what Alexander Hamilton advocated in Federalist Paper 12.
And if you want sources of income, why not the state taking over the raising, growing, researching, testing and marketing of all things hemp? That would create thousand of jobs in Kentucky.
Recreational hemp could be taxed at $100 an ounce, which would make the sales price of one joint about $5.00. that would generate about $1.7 billion to the treasury annually.
What about fuels? Hemp fuels to power internal combustion engines could sell for about $2.00 a gallon -- well within the means of most Kentuckians. That would be additional revenue to the state. A proportional rate tax on that would be additional revenue for the road fund.
A tax system that is not proportional can in no way be called "fair." That's just deception on your part to call it "fair."
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