South Dakota's 2012 ballot could include a provocative tax proposal. Madison superintendent Vince Schaefer tells the school board that many education and health care groups are preparing a petition drive to put a 1% sales tax up for a public vote. This initiated measure would dedicate that extra penny sales tax to shoring up education and Medicaid.
Schaefer gives no exact timeframe, but says the petition drive will start soon. Folks proposing initiated measures have until November 1 to submit petitions with at least 15,855 valid signatures from registered voters.
An extra-penny sales tax is better than a kick in the pants (which is what Senator Russell Olson and Governor Dennis Daugaard gave students and Medicaid recipients this year). A little more sales tax would cause fewer job losses than the Daugaard-Olson budget cuts. Count just the university and K-12 school jobs disappearing from local economies; aren't those jobs worth paying another penny for a cup of coffee?
Unfortunately, an extra-penny sales tax also extends our regressive tax structure. I can certainly think of more comprehensive tax reforms I'd prefer. Charlie Johnson's proposed 1% gross receipts tax might spread the costs more fairly.
But when you're in crisis mode, you don't always have time for the best solution. I look forward to the opportunity to sign the extra-penny sales tax petition, study the proposal, and have this conversation with all South Dakota voters in 2012.
I think Vince has more people on board than really exist. In talking with health care folks, there is no agreement in putting on a penny sales tax. The superintendents are the ones who are pushing it and are hopeful that others, such as healthcare, come on board. Statements such as his suggesting that this is a done deal are premature at best.
I think it's going to be a very tough sell. With $4 gas, increasing food prices, and wages being what they are, taking an extra penny off a dollar that already doesn't put as much food on the table as it did a year ago is going to be a heckuva mountain to scale.
I'm all for good educations, but I still see a lot of duplication, waste, and inefficiency in our universities. I haven't been in a primary or secondary school for about a decade, so my familiarity with work habits isn't there. However, we're dealing with institutions that are traditional, bureaucratic, and slow to change. They are not prone to innovation and efficiency. I think it's time we really take a hard look at how we educate, and make real committments on rewarding outcomes, not inputs.
Online shopping will continue to destroy our tax collection in this state. It is already causing major problems on mainstreet, and I don't see that trend reversing. Ebay and Amazon have certainly impacted our bottom line. It is time that the politicians wake up and realize this is the real reason sales tax collection has been flat and or declining all over. Property and income taxes may be the only audit-able solution to get people to pay their fair share of taxes. While I am for raising sales tax as well, I don't think we can expect the same levels of tax collection until we fix the online shopping problem.
You certainly don't want Medicaid tied to K-12 Education, if for no other reason, the inflation rate for medical care is three to four times that of education and it would erode education's portion quickly. We hear so much about Medicare and Medicaid fraud, but nobody seems to target it and solve it. If we know fraud exists in the billions, let's root it out and fix it rather than keep tossing more money at it. I'm hoping Charlie Johnson will hold a press conference to introduce his BEEF funding proposal, which would allow economists and the LRC in Pierre to analyze it. A gross receipts tax that reduces the property taxes we pay might work if there are no exemptions.
Too little too late. The legislature dinked around with guns and abortion and didn't do the REAL work until the very end of the session. Our stubborn governor is probably breaking his arm patting himself on the back for not raising taxes, but the students in my school will be minus several teachers this fall, including me.
An all-year 1-cent sales-tax increase would go down easier if it included an exemption for groceries. In fact, I think it would pass a referendum in that case. Otherwise I suspect it will fail.
As things seem to be going now, the administration is thinking about removing, not adding, exemptions to the sales tax. Then they can say that they have not increased taxes or added any new ones. I don't think that the public in this state is stupid enough to buy that line.
The Internet taxation problem not only hurts the state government, but it also hurts main-street brick-and-mortar businesses. Some states already impose their sales tax on out-of-state purchases. I don't know how it works, but they did it in Hawaii when I lived there.
Another percentage increas in sales tax is not the answer. Presently there is not a given source that is 100% dedicated to education. Plus huge amounts of wealth in this state contribute not one dime to education. Plus property taxes are under an increasing burden to finance op-outs, necessary bond issues, and road reepairs by local entities. BEEF proposal at a rate of 1%(perhaps less never more)would be 100% DEDICATED TO EDUCATION, REPLACE PROPERTY TAXES, AND be a SOLE SOURCE FOR EDUCATION. We need to fund education as an investment and a personal calling by all residents/companies in this state. Tax policy should not be how we protect and promote our own self interest(selfishness) in Pierre.
Remove the 1% sales tax from cities. Shift that to schools. They seem to view the revenue as manna from heaven and waste it on senseless development projects that businessmen themselves should support without taxing residents and non-residents.
City sales taxes are one of the best examples of taxation without representation of the kind that stimulated the revolution against the British.
Douglas, that's two interesting points. I should sit down with the city budget and calculate just how much of it goes toward corporate welfare. Revoke every penny of that, redirect it to necessary functions of government, like education.
And taxation without representation: I wonder if city sales taxes take in more money from unrepresented payers than the state sales tax?