re: LA's stupid sales tax system has been sued

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instead of creating a brand new commission full of political appointees.

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They only went this route in order to appease all the dumbasses who opposed the centralized collections because they were worried the state would have control over the lical tax money. The commission was to be made up of all local agents. Bad idea? Yes. But btter than the status quo. Can't win.

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There are too many government workers now and you want to protect their jobs?

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I'm concerned about the state having ultimate power in collecting sales tax. You can call it fair or whatever you want. But it will become corrupted and stuff will go wrong. All we have to do is look at our "fair" legislature to see how this works. I want small government and I want it on the most local level as possible. Where the people maintain the power.

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Yes, the sales tax collectors in those offices know about taxes. Members of the board have no idea what is going on. The only people with solid working knowledge of the situation is the employees that are actually collecting the sales tax. They won't be appointed to any position here and we all know it.

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That is literally not true. The remote seller's commission has the people that actually run collections at the local level:


LINK

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I'm concerned about the state having ultimate power in collecting sales tax. You can call it fair or whatever you want. But it will become corrupted and stuff will go wrong. All we have to do is look at our "fair" legislature to see how this works. I want small government and I want it on the most local level as possible. Where the people maintain the power.

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Do 49 other states have their counties collecting local sales taxes?
Do they have issues there?

Right now the EBR Parish Revenue Dept. collects taxes for thd city, the parish, the schools, etc. Each entity doesn’t collect sakes tax, one parish department does because it’s simpler. A statewide commission would be even simpler.

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Also... by your token... should every single tac district in the state collect tax on their own?

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Yes. We should really pay attention to who we pay our taxes to and how much we pay and where it goes.

We don’t. We auto deduct our paychecks and just hit a button once in April and that’s it.

Tax payroll deductions should be illegal.

Every single tax paying citizen should be required to write a check to every single entity they owe taxes to every year. That would cause some political activism and awareness which we are sorely lacking in this country.

That’s my entire problem with this. Businesses are saying “it’s too complicated to figure out where my taxes go. Let me just hand you a huge chunk of money without thinking about it and you figure it out.”

I work extensively in the state and local tax field in Louisiana. I won’t argue the merits of the amendment because I do believe there is a dire need for a conventional overhaul to our tax structure and, more specifically, the sales tax.

However, your assertion that opposing the amendment is “anti-business” ignores the plain fact that large businesses propped by LABI are the reason the code is so fricked up. The businesses pushing this overhaul lobbied the legislature over time to include niche exclusions in 47:301 for various processes. The result is a frankensteins’s monster of highly specific exclusions from tax that are a nightmare to comb through if you’re a small business owner. For example, electricity purchased specifically for a Chlor-alkali manufacturing process is excluded from sales tax at the state level but other sales of electricity are not. On the other hand, all utilities are exempt at the local level so there’s never sales tax on electricity there. Why do we have a exclusion this specific? Because some chemical company paid LABI some money to get it on the books.

On a further point, Louisiana is not anti-business. It’s pro-BIG business to the detriment of individuals and small businesses. Here’s an example. In 2015, the Tax Foundation (a neutral tax analytics group) did a study on effective tax rates on big business in every state. They found that a new, capital-intensive manufacturing company in Louisiana would pay an effective tax rate equal to 0.1% of its income when accounting for income, property, and sales taxes. The vast majority of our industry is capital-intensive manufacturing. At that same time, the state was raising the sales tax rate on all of us because of a budget shortage. It’s simply unjustified to say that the system is anti-business when factual statistics like that exist.

I also don’t write this to say that I think businesses shouldn’t get tax breaks, because I absolutely do. I want to foster business in this state and taxes assist that goal. However, we don’t have to give up the farm every time a plant bats its eyes at us. The taxes help, but they’re coming here for convenient access to the Mississippi, Panama Canal, and extensive maritime shipping capability on top of the shite in the ground. They just push us on taxes to see what they can get away with and we give the farm every single time. Then, after we’ve given the farm, the legislature decides we’re in a budget crises and raises taxes on the us and small businesses.

Unfortunately, that’s just how the sausage is made here.

TL;DR: Reform is needed, but I’m not giving LABI credit for trying to fix the problem they created.

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Dixie Normus

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I don't agree with everything you said, but you raise a lot of good points...about an entirely different set of issues.

None of what you bring up has to do with sales tax collection. And the sales tax collection system is most certainly not of LABI's creation. The belongs squarely at the feet of local government.

Agree - in total with the OP.

The minute Destroya came out against #1, EVERYONE should have known this would be good for businesses in the state.

Of course if any research was done prior to voting, it was 1st grade simple to vote in favor.

Hope the suit is successful.

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MTU supports getting rid of national income taxes and replacing with a national consumption (sales) tax.

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You would think that would get them more tax money but then the poors who don't pay income tax would have to actually pay into it.

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Tax payroll deductions should be illegal.

Every single tax paying citizen should be required to write a check to every single entity they owe taxes to every year. That would cause some political activism and awareness which we are sorely lacking in this country.

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It would also cause massive under-collections. People would just say F it, I'm not paying, and the tax agencies don't have enough resources to go after everyone.