Fleet Admiral Hood slowly explains that — in many ways — local sales taxes are inferior to local property taxes when you apply notions of fiscal conservatism to the decision matrix. Reality also intrudes:

First, many people continue to believe that only those who own real property bear the incidence of property taxation. That’s foolish. Renters pay property taxes in their rents. Shoppers pay property taxes with their purchases. Visitors pay property taxes when they shop or recreate in your town. The fact that businesses collect and transmit these revenues to the government doesn’t change the basic economics of the matter. Sales taxes don’t replace property-tax revenue. They just augment it.

Second, and related to that, it is false to suggest as some advocates do that sales taxes are more “fair” than property taxes. Because sales taxes apply only to goods, not to services, they are grossly regressive and apportion the tax burden unevenly among professions and industry sectors – retailers, their employees, and their customers end up shouldering more of the cost of local government than, say, medical professionals. Property taxes aren’t free from distorting effects, either, primarily because property owned by governments and nonprofits is exempt. But the effects are less egregious. …

Third, if conservatives are trying to keep the total tax burden as low as possible, property taxes are the better bet. For one thing, they are easily deducted from federal income tax. Furthermore, property taxes, like income taxes, are hard to raise because most voters get an annual tally of how much the taxes cost them, arming them with the information they need to hold politicians accountable. No such tally is available for sales taxes paid. That’s why politicians prefer the sales tax. Come on, you self-styled “conservatives.” Use your noggins.

As we know with regard to the half-cent sales tax, local authorities have used the absurdly low number of $40 per year per median household as the amount paid in half-cent sales tax. The trouble is that figure would only appear to raise a quarter as much as the $50 million or so the tax manifestly raises from local taxpayers each year. (The total take is now $70 million, but if we assume that 30 percent comes from out-of-county shoppers the local take declines.)

That is what happens when you do not have an easy one-stop bill to measure the cost of government services. Complicated math and loaded assumptions attempt to fill the void with government always arguing for the lowest possible number.

And I’d also add that dedicated sales taxes like the transit tax also skew benefits toward government and more spending by permitting a slightly lower interest rate on debt secured by the dedicated stream (which also explains why the banks and bond dealers love dedicated taxes — sure fire bond sales with low risk). Dedicated taxes for high-priority items like transit also remove a claim on General Fund revenues, freeing up money to be spent on things like Whitewater parks, business handouts, TV shows, and the Mayor’s International Cabinet.

Bad deal all around.