Tuesday, November 25, 2008
For all of the talk we heard this political season about small business, Joe the Plumber and who in the business world tax hikes really whack, that talk took a walk only a few days after the confetti fell.
Our own Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger quickly shed his sheep's clothing to reveal his tax-wolf persona by announcing not just a 1.5 percent sales tax increase, but the "Taxinator" sighted his cross hairs on small business.
Casting aside his no-tax pledge as if it were an old Hollywood script, "Taxinator" proposed $5 billion in taxes that will come primarily through the cash registers of small business, or more specifically, cash registers where never before was a sales tax collected.
Rather than cut spending to match new, lower tax revenue levels unlikely to improve any time soon, "Taxinator" took a cue from his Kennedy in-laws: Raise everyone's taxes and target new areas such as veterinarian services, appliance and furniture repairs, greens fees and auto repair services.
If all this is making you think you need a drink, think again. The Taxinator also wants a five-cent per-drink tax. Just what a struggling bar and restaurant industry needs right now.
When the governor campaigned to recall then Gov. Gray Davis, he rode the back of small business, saying that everything from workers comp to energy deregulation was threatening to kill jobs, businesses and a solid tax base. He would succeed where
Gov. Davis failed, he told us, by making jobs stick in the state and creating business-friendly policies.
Increasing the sales tax by more than 15 percent while singling out certain services for new taxation is a startling abandonment of his principles.
Fortunately, it looks that the governor's plan will be dead on arrival. Unlike Schwarzenegger, the state's Republican leadership plans to stand behind its no-tax pledge.
But clearly, the new ground here is the governor identifying businesses that have avoided sales taxation. Imagine being a business that might have tocollect an extra 10 percent from customers.
Most of us believe in a fair taxation system, and maybe inequities exist that should be addressed. But to do it in a vacuum, with no public input, seems out of character for a governor who has painted himself as a friend of business.
Source: http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews
