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Responsibility:
 Tom Sgouros
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Wed, 25 May 2005
More tax cuts for the rich (what else is new?)
Once again, by not addressing the question of who pays, the state is
poised to give tax cuts to the wealthy, at everyone else's expense. In today's
paper,
it appears that money from a new contract with the new owners of
Lincoln Park would go to finishing off the property tax on cars.
Eliminating the property tax on cars was proposed several years ago
by Tony Pires, the former head of the House Finance Committee, and a
2002 candidate for the Democratic nomination for Governor. The idea,
though, was to phase it in as an exemption on the first dollars of a
car's value. So in year 1, the refunds to the towns allowed them to
exempt the first $1,000 of a car's value, year 2 was for the first
$2,000, and so on.
It was never clear that the state could handle this much tax cut,
and it was certainly clear that the state wouldn't be able to pay for
this cut and the 10% income tax cut passed the same year. The
income tax cut was Governor Almond's idea, and neither he nor Pires
would give in on their pet idea, and the House passed them both. The
House Fiscal Advisor said to me at the time, "The chairman [Pires]
believes the state would benefit from some fiscal constraints over
time." So I guess no one was worried.
Well, my predictions turned out to be true: the state can't
really afford those cuts. The Assembly stopped the car tax exemption
at $4,500 a few years ago, and it has stayed there since. Now they
see a golden opportunity to finish the job. But — to point out
the obvious — tax relief granted this way would only go to
people whose cars are worth more than $4,500, and the vast bulk of it
would go to people whose cars are worth substantially more. Are
these the people most in need of tax relief?
It is true that the municipalities with the highest car taxes are
those that have the poorest populations: Providence, Central Falls,
Woonsocket, etc. But exactly zero relief would go to anyone in those
communities whose car is worth less than $4,500.
11:59 - 25 May 2005 [/y5/my]
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