I see Jodi is now becoming the Mayor’s cheerleader in trying to raise our sales taxes;
At the same time, before offering any incentive like that, we need to consider raising sales tax across the board if we’re going to continue to emphasize reducing property tax.
In the city of Sioux Falls alone, one penny of sales tax can generate almost $100 million each year. An option to capture that revenue, while at the same time pairing a sales tax holiday to provide relief during the year, seems worth exploring.
Our average of 6.11 percent, coming in at No. 36, is quite low, especially when you consider there’s no personal or corporate income tax to help fund government services.
She thinly veiled her support for a sales tax increase with a story about sales tax holidays. How about we put South Dakotans on a permanent sales tax holiday and implement an income tax. I did the math, and if you set it with certain income levels, 60% or more of South Dakotans wouldn’t pay a penny in income taxes. I have argued if we implemented a income tax on households and private business who make over $100K a year (with exemptions for children) and increased the assessments on commercial and ag properties for property taxes, we would have oodles of money for programs while eliminating the sales tax almost entirely. I would keep sales taxes on luxury items and items over a certain dollar value. Sales taxes on anything we need like medical, energy, food, clothing, etc., would be eliminated. Making poor people pay more in taxes so property owners can get a tax cut makes no sense and is defeating the purpose. I support a property tax cut, but other changes have to be implemented for it to work, and we don’t need to increase taxes on things we need, the government needs to budget differently and we need to go after the tax dollars where they are; RICH PEOPLE. But since they control this town and legislature it will never happen.
What about a progressive property tax system that is based not only on the value of the land, but also on the current wealth and income of a given property owner? In fact, even a speeding ticket should be based on wealth. Keep the same ticket costs for speeding for the average South Dakotan, but for a wealthy South Dakotan, maybe the ticket should be 1000s of Dollars, huh? The same should go for hunting licenses as well. AND, for out-of-state hunters, especially the ones who like to go down to Dallas and pass out ones and park their Learjets at the Winner airport, maybe they should have to pay 1000s for a hunting license, too…. It would only be fair, right? I mean, why should a lap dance cost more than a birdie license? #ThrillTax #LapDanceTax #TaxGrind
Because, we can be very progressive without an income tax. In fact, I’ve argued for years that we already have an income tax in this state and it’s caused by the inherent low wages we have in this state, which to some degree can be blamed on wage collusion.
( and Woodstock adds: “Say, what about the price of eggs? ….. How much should we charge a wealthy bastard for a dozen eggs?” …. 🙂 )
“Just think of the Utopia my chamber crony friends could create in Sioux Falls if only the City government had more of your money to spend!”
The Chamber Cheerleader, in this op-ed, essentially.