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.