FreedomTalks

Time for Republicans in Texas to start living up to their own stated principles.

Here is the story.

The Republican-led House is voting today on whether to increase taxes on businesses and cigarettes, despite an over $8 billion surplus.

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House Bill 1 would dip into the surplus to give school districts enough money to reduce their property tax rates for maintenance and operations from $1.50 to $1.33 per $100 of assessed property value. Backers say the plan would provide enough of a cut to satisfy the Texas Supreme Court if no other piece of Perry’s proposed tax overhaul passes. Critics call it the “get outta Dodge” plan.

House Bill 2 would use money from three tax increases to replace dollars lost if school property taxes are cut by one-third or more. The tax increases would be a new business tax, a higher cigarette tax and a change in sales-tax reporting on used cars.

Business tax: House Bill 3 would replace the corporate franchise tax with a new ‘margins’ tax, which would apply to more businesses. The tax would require businesses to pay 1 percent of their gross receipts, with deductions for either salaries and benefits or costs of goods sold. The rate would be 0.5 percent for retailers and wholesalers. General partnerships and sole proprietorships would be exempt, as would businesses with annual revenue of less than $300,000.

Car tax: House Bill 4 would require someone who buys a used car to pay sales taxes on at least 80 percent of the ‘blue book’ value of the car. The buyer could hire an independent appraiser to appeal that value.

Cigarette tax: House Bill 5 would raise the cigarette tax from 41 cents per pack to $1.46 over three years, starting with a 55-cent increase.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 24th, 2006 at 5:18 pm and is filed under States. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.