In response to The Forum's Sunday, July 29 letter "Sales and property taxes too high," I would like to point out that there are many people in this state that do not pay property taxes, but were indeed left behind with the legislature's so called "property tax relief."
The state does not collect property taxes. It could be argued that the state stepped outside constitutional bounds by redistributing general fund revenue derived partially from income tax to subsidize local property owners' tax obligations. Time will tell if this precedent of transferring the burden of local property owners to statewide income earners remains. Hopefully, our legislators will abandon this avenue during the next session.
The proper avenue of tax relief in a time of surplus is always to reduce the rates of those who contributed to the surplus in the first place. Property taxpayers did not do this in any way.
As far as the sales tax, it is an effective and broad based tax that fairly taxes the consumption of resources by individuals based on spending - the more you spend, the more you pay. By reducing income tax rates, we will all be able to spend more.
I wonder if the writer of the letter in question is against the proposed Cass County half-cent sales tax increase.
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Property taxes are a local issue. If this proposed sales tax increase is not going to reduce the reliance on property taxes, perhaps they are not that big of a problem after all. If the people of Cass County vote themselves a tax increase that does not decrease taxes somewhere else, why should the rest of the state feel sorry for them?
