The shark never stops swimming.
But it will not be the last tax change coming. (Snyder) said he planned to address the personal property tax in the fall, but had to work with local governments to be sure the solution did not overly affect their coffers.
This is one time where the simplicity of the media works in our favor. The current CW is that business has just received a massive tax cut, and to some extent they did, but the MBT does not account for the bulk of business taxes collected in Michigan. Haglund pointed this out last October during the campaign, and it's been pretty much forgotten by now.
This year's report, based on 2009 tax data, found that property and sales taxes comprised 70.7 percent of total business tax payments by Michigan companies.
Just 11.7 percent of taxes paid by Michigan businesses came from gross receipts and corporate income taxes captured by the MBT. The rest of the business tax burden is in unemployment, licensing and other miscellaneous taxes.
Now the Republicans need a new villain, and they have one ready-made in property taxes. Strike up the band to play the same 'ol song, start rending the garments and gnashing the teeth... "If we don't cut property taxes, everyone will leeeeeave....."
Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville said the GOP-led Legislature could slash personal property taxes on businesses after lawmakers cut taxes on most companies last week.
‘We can’t afford to scare businesses away,” said Richardville, R-Monroe, who appeared before about 75 people at the Saginaw County Republican Party Lincoln Day luncheon Monday at the Horizons Conference Center. The issue could arise in the fall.
After a summer of golf, of course. This isn't an urgent issue. We can afford to scare them away for now. But this fall, it's going to be a major, major "job-killing" problem. Wait and see.
Can Republicans hit this well one more time? Given the short attention span of a public that is barley paying attention in the first place, the trick has worked for thirty years now - but between the tax increase on citizens, and the emergency financial manager nonsense, it's hard to see how they will justify hitting the locals again.
Not that that will stop them. They will do it anyway. And you are going to pay for it, one way or another.