Brawner: Tax Breaks For Tax Cuts

Arkansas News Bureau columnist Steve Brawner explores the subject of our news story on Rep. Davy Carter’s (R-Cabot) efforts to review state sales tax exemptions.

Carter, who chairs the House Revenue and Tax Committee, wants to study if repealing some exemptions is justified in an effort to lower personal income tax rates.

Brawner notes that of the 121 exemptions totaling more than $1 billion, there will be plenty of folks looking to protect the status quo.

From Brawner:

Carter told me he is “not naive enough to think that this will be an easy process,” which is one of the year’s top 10 political understatements. The majority of the tax breaks are related to basics of life — food and fuel.

Beneficiaries enjoy receiving them, especially when they have done so for more than 70 years. It’s a safe bet that most if not all of these hearings will attract them and their lobbyists to the state Capitol like flies are attracted to honey. Heck hath no fury like a horde of politically awakened poets.

One other thing that affects the dynamic: Carter’s Revenue and Tax Committee is one of the few legislative committees in Arkansas history with more Republicans than Democrats. A lot of these Republicans came to Little Rock to reform the system and will be receptive to ending these tax breaks in order to lower income tax rates.

On the other hand, those lobbyists can be persuasive, no matter one’s political party. Anyway, whatever the House passes would have to get through the Senate, where the lobbyists who failed to protect their clients in Carter’s committee would be waiting to redeem themselves.

You can read his full column at this link.