Are all these tax giveaways hurting Louisiana?

you and IBFreeman should get together

Tax cuts and tax breaks where a person or entity is simply paying less to the state? No.

Subsidies where a person or entity get back more money than they've paid in? Yes.

Does the 1.4 Billion dollar shortfall in next year's budget reflect the drop in current crude prices?

Seems pretty clear. Jindal and republican policies have killed the state. There really is no debating it the facts are there.

An A+ article by the advocate

The article also mentioned Blanco's tenure.

Some of you on here on complete hyper-sensitive when it comes to any kind of criticism of Jindal.

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TigerCLT

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IB alter

The fact that finally a major newspaper piece has been published on this issue is major victory for fiscal conservatives.

Jindal's biggest problem in all of this IMHO---instead of addressing full bore the problems he sees and acknowledges he instead has campaigned for President. Had he taken the lead in changing what he and Moret describes as a "Byzantine Tax Code" instead of running for office full time we could have had real changes. His call for ending the income tax was nothing but a talking point. Too bad while revenues were good he did not make the changes necessary to simplify our tax code and end these special interest giveaways.

A commentary on a few points---

Property taxes. The article mentions the huge subsidy of local governments by the state government through the refunds of inventory taxes. Taxing inventory through property taxes as personal property is just a bad idea. The legislature acknowledged this some time ago under either KBB or Foster I think. Instead of eliminating the tax however they simply gave businesses state income tax credits to offset the tax. The local governments get hundreds of millions of dollar through this. It is a bad deal as is our entire property tax structure.

My solution is this---hold all revenues from property taxes flat for one year while ending the homestead exemption, the 10 year industrial tax exemption, the farmstead cap and the tax on inventory and outlaw the ownership of business property by tax exempt industrial development boards (I can explain the problem with that last one if you want but basically it boils down to a tax exempt entity owning a company's property to avoid property tax.)

The end result of the changes I purpose would be millions of dollars of property being added to the tax roles while the revenue to the government would not change for one year. This will actually lower property tax for most homeowners that pay taxes now I suspect. It will raise taxes on farmers and 10 year tax exempt folks. It will lower property taxes on retailers and wholesalers who have lots of inventory but may increase their income taxes.

The good thing about property taxes---if there is something good---is that the people vote for them. By ending the homestead exemption I believe people will be much more interested and concerned about local tax votes and spending. (A recreation district gets the most money from my company's property tax--more than the sheriff or schools--libraries get the second most. How stupid is that? Recreation districts should be funded by users.)

Enterprise Zone Exemption The main thing in the enterprise zone law that benefits companies it he refund of sales taxes on the investment in capital buildings and equipment. These things shouldn't be subject to sales taxes to begin with. Why should a person pay sales tax on a piece of equipment and then pay property tax on it forever?? These are the true assets of job creation and we should end the enterprise zone program AND the taxing through state sales tax of capital equipment purchases. If the locals want to continue to tax it then let them compete with each other. This may result in lower state sales tax revenue but I doubt very much.

Film tax and digital media tax credits Unlike the enterprise zone or inventory tax refunds or even the fracking tax credits these "credits" are direct subsidies that take money from other taxpayers to fund. The other programs are self funding through the taxes generated by the businesses.

Film tax credits and digital media credits should end today.

Fracking tax credits I understand these credits are credits against severance taxes so in that regard they are self funding and are almost like deductions instead of credits. Regardless I really don't see a reason to have them. Like the article says the price of oil has more to do with the drilling activity than any other factor.

Direct state expenditures I don't like these at all. The $50-60 million the state gave Foster Farms to buy out Pilgrim's Pride was nothing but political patronage IMHO. Giving the hundreds of millions we gave for that liquid gas plant was crazy too. Lacasine sugar mill comes to mind too.

I acknowledge that from time to time big deals are available and certain infrastructure investments need to be made to build roads, sewage plants etc. These should be done through state loans to local governments not grants.

Even though the article makes little effort to separate the subsidies from the self funded tax programs I am really glad to see this major press publication addressing this problem.


I stand, as always, for smaller government that treats citizens fairly and manages the government we want in an efficient effective way.

Reducing the burden of government on taxpayers should be the primary goal for every piece of legislation created.

I agree the "Byzantine Tax Code" need to change and wish that our leaders had the fortitude to do so.

That said, I'd like to better understand how the film tax credits "take money directly from the taxpayers". The only way this makes sense is if you assume the economy is not dynamic and that they'd be here even without the credits. Before this program, there was virtually no film industry here in Louisiana. Now, it is thriving and creates a lot of jobs (primary and secondary) in which the employees pays taxes of all sorts (income, property, sales). Giving a tax credits for these activities for a period of time seems like a wash, at worst.

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That said, I'd like to better understand how the film tax credits "take money directly from the taxpayers"

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are you trolling or just ignorant of the program?

they only call them "tax credits". They are subsidies--cash redeemable and transferrable for sale to other people credits that are based on the expenses (up to 35% of their expenses) of the film makers and has nothing to do with their tax liabilities. They are the worst of the so called tax incentives mentioned in the article.

If they were truly tax credits and could only be used by the film maker to pay taxes they generate that would not require the state to rob from other taxpayer's services or pockets to pay them.

Louisiana Purchased was also filled with "facts" that were either leading or untrue.