The Blue Ribbon Tax Commission has released its final report and legislators have received a briefing. You can find the entire final report online at this address:
http://www.vermonttaxreform.org/library/ by clicking on "Final Report." In short, the Blue Ribbon Tax Commission makes a recommendation to broaden the tax base and lower rates for both income and sales taxes.
Please keep in mind while reviewing this report that the Commission will continue its work to include property taxes. We expect to see the report that includes property taxes in September and should include recommendations re: educational funding. At this point the recommendations still need to be evaluated by the finance committees. Public input is sought and can be sent directly to the Commission using the link provided by the reports site.
The goal of the report writers is, as I understand it:
1.The recommended restructuring will raise the same amount of money that is raised now. This is not an attempt to raise taxes. It gives us the opportunity to look at our tax system as a whole, and make changes to it in the context of the whole, rather than each individual tax provision. The goal is to be revenue neutral. 2.The report hopes to align our tax methods with most other states. This will allow businesses thinking of locating to our state the opportunity to compare “apples to apples.” When you compare Vermont to the rest of New England we are actually in the middle of the pack. The way our tax structure works now with tiered rates and based on federal tax liability rather than adjusted income,, it is difficult to see how we actually compare, and it looks like we are a higher tax state than we really are.
I don’t know how all this will sugar out until after the committees of jurisdiction have done their work of taking testimony and receiving public input. That will be a lengthy process. I encourage anyone to go to the report and submit their concerns. VPR did a segment this week that illustrates what the process will be and discusses some of the concerns
Here's the link :
http://www.vpr.net/episode/50288/Among the specific recommendations are the following:
· removing most exemptions from both income and sales taxes
· eliminate standardized and itemized deductions from the income tax
· lowering the sales tax from 6% to 4.5%
· including all exempt goods except food in the sales tax
· applying sales tax to the provision of services
· applying the sales tax to internet based sales (would require Federal action)
· moving from Taxable Income to Adjusted Gross Income to calculate your personal income tax
Rep. Gary Gilbert
Fairfax/Georgia
