If this Commonwealth Commonsense report is accurate, even Russ Potts may not be enough of a tax-raiser to satisfy some people.
Chamber of Commerce Tax Rally
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Comments
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Will:
I know that your point is always that these business groups don’t push for a corporate income tax increase. And that point has some merit.
But would you ever except business PACs to lobby for higher taxes for their members?
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These business PACs generally have two aims:
1. To promote infrastructure investment in Virginia to create a climate where workers want to locate. That way they can tap into a large and attractive pool of labor. They seem to feel that the way to do that is to invest in roads. Maybe they’re wrong, maybe not.
2. To keep taxes low for their members – that includes the BPOL, sales tax exemptions, and especially the corporate income tax.
The way to satisfy both goals is to push for:
1. A responsible bipartisan (and most of all) predictable government that cuts waste and diverts tax revenue towards infrastructure repair and development
2. Increases in various taxes that don’t affect business interests.
These are good people, in my estimation, who sit on the board of Leadership for Virginia. Jim Urkop is a GOOD MAN, dare a say a great man. The work he’s done for his community puts us all to shame. I’m a little tired of people trashing these guys just because they’ve finally decided to stop filling the coffers of right-wing candidates.
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I know this is at least the second time I’ve mentioned the corporate tax thing and I should give it a rest. I just believe they ought to be a little more receptive to “shared sacrifice.” They went ballistic when a proposal was made to lift a lot of business sales tax exemptions.
I work with a lot of Chamber types and I agree that they are good people who do a lot for the community, as their businesses do, too.
They are just another interest group, though. They lobby for their interests, as we would expect. Because of their “clout,” they get more press than the faceless small business people and working stiffs who are probably not as gung-ho on increased taxes.
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They did go nuts over those sales tax exemptions (as put forward by the House GOP in 2004)…but there was an element of political payback in those proposals. It was a slap in the face…At least that was my take.
I think that some in the GOP were upset that the business PACs supported Governor Warner’s election and his agenda.
I’m still convinced that it wasn’t the tax increasing or “investment” that attracted business PACs to moderate Democrats – it was the GOP’s obsession with divisive social issues. At least that’s what I’ve heard from people like Jim Ukrop and Til Hazel.
I may be way off here – but that’s my take, anyway.
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Oh and I agree that they’re given more clout than they really deserve…it’s almost anti-democratic, really (since we’re in an unlimited contribution state). But we’re fortunate that most of these guys are good people.
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Oh I’m going to regret this. You know, our members (Va Chamber of Commerce) paid every single tax that was part of the tax increase package in 2004, with the possible exception of the cigarette tax (which some paid as individuals, and which certainly had some impact on the industry and retailers.) Businesses pay mucho sales taxes (about 35 percent of the total), mucho real estate recordation fees, and would pay mucho gasoline taxes if that were increased. And we accepted as part of the deal some of those lost sales tax exemptions and a change in the corporate income tax (closing loopholes!) that had brought in plenty of new revenue. We pushed for changes that were broad and across the board that hit everybody — business and individual — a bit rather than hit any one group alot.
You don’t want a corporate income tax rate that is substantially higher than the personal income tax rate because you just create one more incentive to change to an LLC or S Corp structure. Nor do you want to rely too heavily on a tax that is almost completely tied to the business cycle. Frankly, from a pure economic sense, the corporate income tax should be abolished since it represents double taxation on the shareholder’s dollar of income. More and more firms are moving to partnership structures to avoid it, and the C Corp is becoming far less popular.
Business doesn’t pay taxes. One way or another the customers, employees or stockholders do. Only people can pay taxes.
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