This post originally appeared as a Forbes op-ed here.
Ohio taxA tax is a mandatory payment or charge collected by local, state, and national governments from individuals or businesses to cover the costs of general government services, goods, and activities. policy needs a lot of work, and Governor John Kasich talks about it a lot. The state ranks 44th in the Tax Foundation’s State Business Tax Climate Index, the municipal income tax system is the worst in the country, and the state’s corporate tax (called the Commercial Activities Tax, or CAT) is rare in that it is a gross receipts taxA gross receipts tax, also known as a turnover tax, is applied to a company’s gross sales, without deductions for a firm’s business expenses, like costs of goods sold and compensation. Unlike a sales tax, a gross receipts tax is assessed on businesses and apply to business-to-business transactions in addition to final consumer purchases, leading to tax pyramiding. , which public finance experts have roundly criticized since Adam Smith in 1776.
Unfortunately, the plan which is set to be announced next Monday by Governor Kasich isn’t going to address any of these problems and will probably make them worse.
According to Cleveland.com, the plan will include an increase in personal exemptions for low and middle-income Ohioans, which is fine and good, but will also include a 100 percent deduction for pass-through businesses like LLCs, S-corps, and sole proprietors for their first $2 million in revenue—meaning many will pay no income taxes at all. This is a tax gimmick du jour made famous (not in a good way) by the ill-fated tax experiment in Kansas.
The idea for excluding small businesses from tax liability is to promote job creation and growth in the state, but the unintended consequence of this policy is that it allows wage earners to change their structure to avoid paying any income taxes.
For example, if they enacted this policy where I live in Washington, D.C., I would just go to my employer, the Tax Foundation, and ask them to start paying me as a contractor, then file my individual income taxes as a sole proprietor business and get a huge tax cut. I wouldn’t be contributing any more to economic growth—I’m still doing the same job—but state revenues would take a big hit.
Don’t get me wrong; individual income taxAn individual income tax (or personal income tax) is levied on the wages, salaries, investments, or other forms of income an individual or household earns. The U.S. imposes a progressive income tax where rates increase with income. The Federal Income Tax was established in 1913 with the ratification of the 16th Amendment. Though barely 100 years old, individual income taxes are the largest source of tax revenue in the U.S. cuts are great. But cutting individual income taxes by excluding a whole class of taxpayers costs a lot to state coffers and won’t give the economic growth that Gov. Kasich wants.
In Kansas, which started excluding 100 percent of pass-through businessA pass-through business is a sole proprietorship, partnership, or S corporation that is not subject to the corporate income tax; instead, this business reports its income on the individual income tax returns of the owners and is taxed at individual income tax rates. income in 2013, this carve-out has resulted in year-over-year revenue shortfalls, as more people shift their form to achieve tax-free status.
The fact that this carve-out costs so much in revenue should be especially concerning to Ohioans, because Governor Kasich has a track record of proposing handfuls of hikes to other damaging taxes to make the budget numbers add up.
Last year, the governor’s Mid-Biennium Review plan had income tax cuts, but also proposed a hike in the rate of the Commercial Activities Tax, a hike to the cigarette excise taxAn excise tax is a tax imposed on a specific good or activity. Excise taxes are commonly levied on cigarettes, alcoholic beverages, soda, gasoline, insurance premiums, amusement activities, and betting, and typically make up a relatively small and volatile portion of state and local and, to a lesser extent, federal tax collections. , a new tax on electronic cigarettes, an increase in the state’s severance tax rate, and an $8 million levy on new well drills.
It comes down to this: good tax reform is composed of broadening the base, and lowering the rate. The Kasich plan would be a significant narrowing of the tax baseThe tax base is the total amount of income, property, assets, consumption, transactions, or other economic activity subject to taxation by a tax authority. A narrow tax base is non-neutral and inefficient. A broad tax base reduces tax administration costs and allows more revenue to be raised at lower rates. , and that makes revenues less stable and less fair. If the Governor wants to give Ohioans an income tax cut, why not just do it across the board?
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