Local Taxpayers Beware - Commentary on DSM Register piece
December 29, 2008 by Danny Carroll · Leave a Comment
“Plan Would Give Iowa Cities Power to Tax Incomes”
The Register’s Jason Clayworth writes, “Cities would have the power to tax Iowans’ incomes as a way to reduce the reliance on property taxes under a proposal that will be pitched to lawmakers next month.â€
Local taxpayers need to beware.
The latest suggestion to allow local governments to tax incomes in order to reduce the reliance on property taxes is troubling. I say troubling because I do not believe there will be any “reduced reliance on property tax”. Most likely the local taxpayer will continue to pay the same or higher property tax and an additional tax on income as well.
If the legislature wants to debate the idea of exchanging one tax for another so that the net impact on the taxpayer is neutral to positive then that is another matter.   The only way to protect against this result is to permanently remove from the Iowa Code a requirement for certain services to be paid for by the property tax. Any proposal to allow local governments to tax income should at least be coupled with the removal of an equal or greater property tax requirement. However, the nature of government is to only talk about reducing taxes and in the end the taxpayer finds out they end up paying more.
For the most part this discussion is not about reducing the reliance on any tax, it is about finding a way for government to take more out of the pocket of the taxpayer.
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