If you?ve read this forum regularly in recent weeks, you?ve encountered John Locke Foundation experts? research debunking arguments for proposed sales-tax increases in nearly a dozen counties across the state ? including Guilford.
One common argument from the tax-hike supporters involves the potential impact on the local property-tax rate: Agree to a sales-tax increase, commissioners say, and you?ll avoid or mitigate a property-tax hike.
That argument assumes that the county government needs more revenue. Left unexplained is the answer to this question: Why does it make more sense to raise this additional revenue from a sales tax rather than a property tax?
The authors of Common Sense Economics offer us a clue:
It is also important to recognize that politicians have an incentive to conceal the cost of government. As former Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole noted when quoting Jean-Baptiste Colbert, French economist and minister of finance under King Louis XIV: ?Taxing is much like plucking a goose. It is the art of getting the greatest number of feathers with the least amount of hissing.?
