It’s no wonder that Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and so many state lawmakers support ending taxes on business equipment: The cost would be borne mostly by local governments. And if cities and counties have to raise property taxes to cover their lost revenue –which now totals $200 million a year — well, that’s their problem. This off-loading of responsibility is why a staff attorney with the Tax Foundation in Washington, D.C., wasn’t impressed with the proposed cut. Chris Atkins told The Eagle editorial board this week that rather than force tax cuts on local governments, the state should focus on reducing its own business taxes, such as the corporate franchise tax.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
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8 Comments
How about government spending less. Isn’t our state government growing faster than inflation, job creation, and wages?
I can’t wait to see 20/20 Tonight on ABC. They are going to showcase a school that spends less than every other school yet has great test scores. I know a lot of people hate John Stossel, but I think its great that he shows the other side of reteric, basically the truth.
Joe, I happen to agree with you that reducing spending is the best way to keep taxes under control.
But I meant to make this same point at the next on topic opportunity. Governor Leadership has no problem pushing the tax burden down to local government just as long as it makes her look good for re-election. She does have a big problem reducing spending, but she is just like the R’s in Topeka. That must be why she is so popular.
You commended her the other day for reducing business taxes. Excuse me, but this was a shell game and a shuffling of the deck, not a reduction in business taxes. She just shrugged and put the burden on local government. She did the same thing a few years ago when she kept tax money designated for local government so that she could “lead” the state through yet another financial crisis and artificially balance the budget. Who do you suppose pays those local taxes Joe?
Do you think her inability to provide leadership or meaningful solutions might be one reason why our state debt ranking is skyrocketing? Or is it only the fault of those legislators who keep campaigning as fiscal conservatives?
This state is building up a financial burden for the future, bleeding population, set to lose another congressional seat, and rapidly going bankrupt under her leadership and the collusion of those conservative R’s we send to Topeka.
Lets see some real tax reduction before you start fawning over Governor Leadership Joe. She must think we are all as stupid as…well…I guess we are if we buy this!
You call it a tax shuffle, but I think you have the misunderstanding that businesses pay taxes in the first place. Actually they do not. They look at taxes as an expense and directly pass that cost on to the consumer. If you tax businesses, then prices of products and service goes up or competition beats them out of price competition then those businesses fail.
If you are going to tax people to fund the government, it should only come from the people, not businesses. But its popular to tax businesses because of precieved wealth that the poor and leftist liberals envy and think companies have.
So the shift from the complicated property taxes on business equipment to home property taxes is actually a win win for the state. Because the cost of tax complience alone for companies to keep records of the equipment is overwhelming. They can use the tax and the complience savings in growing their business, hiring more people, and giving people raises and benefits. But somebody having a $200,000 home and their property taxes goes up $30 a year is negliable in comparison.
A tax shift can become a revenue savings for the state and result in positive economic growth.
Joe, you’re gonna get hammered over this but you’re right. One of the best things that could be done to spur growth in this state would be to eliminate all taxes on business. Imagine the jobs that would rush to this state.
Taxes are a cost of doing business that gets factored into the price of a product or service.(in a competitive environment)If you can reduce the cost of the raw materials going into a product you can reduce the price of that product and be more competitive. Same thing with taxes.
Eliminate the franchise tax? Preposterous! Then I wouldn’t have to pay an accountant $1,500 to tell the State of Kansas I owe them 10 bucks. This could seriously affect employment among Kansas accountants.
Why not eliminate all business taxes and put them on the individual. Sounds like the Kansas Way.
That would be the best idea in the world Justa Guy, and I’m being serious!
Governor Sebelius’ proposal to exempt business equipment from taxation is just another nail in the home owner’s financial coffin.In my openion a business decision based on taxes is a very poorly run business. A decision to buy business equipment should be based on it’s profitability and NOT it’s tax savings.A business can recoup their taxes in their pricing structure whereas a home owner has no way to recoup the added tax to their home.I think in place of adding exemptions, we should go back to taxing inventories which will relieve heavily burdened family home owners especially those home owners on a fixed income.