Senate Taxes Committee Chairman Tom Bakk, DFL-Cook, this morning proposed to add clothing to the state's sales tax in order to payback last year's K-12 school aid shift and reduce the current budget deficit. While expanding the sales tax base, Bakk also wants to lower the sales tax rate from 6.5 percent to 6.25 percent. Minnesota is one of five states that don't tax clothing sales.
To hear Rep. Paul Marquart (DFL-Dilworth) (pictured) tell it, his proposal to establish an optional county-level sales tax authority would solve a lot of Minnesota counties’ fiscal woes in a single stroke–replacing cuts to county program aid, reducing upward pressure on property taxes, and broadening counties’ tax base.
But the counties are not exactly rushing to [...]
Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal featured a must-read survey piece on the nationwide collapse of the sales tax revenues that state and local governments rely on heavily to fund government operations. (It makes for a nice bookend to yesterday’s Strib story about Elko/New Market’s decision to dissolve its police force in an effort to stay solvent.)
According [...]
The tax bill introduced on Monday by Sen. Ann Rest (DFL-New Hope) (pictured) is the broadest package of tax code changes offered so far this session, but it’s getting decidedly mixed reviews at the Capitol. And the critics aren’t all Republicans.
SF1274 would phase out entirely the corporate income tax that Gov. Tim Pawlenty had proposed [...]
How many of Minnesota’s wealthiest households does it take to equal the income of the state’s poorest 1 million households? It turns out the answer is a little fewer than 6,000. I know this thanks to the state’s new tax incidence survey, which was released yesterday. It’s no wonder this biennial study is a favorite [...]
As I noted yesterday, few things are proving scarcer at the Capitol these days than Democrats willing to talk openly about the inevitability of tax increases as part of this year’s budget solution. And, to be fair, it’s still very early in the game to expect concrete proposals; GOP Gov. Tim Pawlenty had months, and [...]
