The Time for Tax Reform is NOW!
Last week, I attended a conference sponsored by TTPF (Texas Public Policy Foundation) reviewing the highlights of the recent 81st Legislative Session. There did not seem to be much positive legislation that passed. The most promising report was that numerous bad bills failed to pass also.
It was reported that Proposition 2, 3, and 11 started out with the best of intentions. However, the final language for these Amendments is so convoluted, that one speaker stated that we will not know if they are good or bad, “until the courts decide.” In my opinion, that is a disgrace and a total failure on the part of our elected representatives
One exciting presentation came from former Representative Talmadge Heflin. He discussed a TTPF sponsored study which confirms that government funded by property taxes is oppressive and discourages economic growth and job creation. The study described benefits of abolishing our current property tax system and funding government with a broad based sales tax.
I later called Mr. Heflin to thank him for sharing this information. He said there is increased interest among some legislators to consider such an option, but it needs major discussion to make sure such a program is properly implemented, and not just replacing one bad tax system with another bad system.
The first time I actually heard about the TTPF study was when Debra Medina, candidate for governor of Texas, quoted numbers from this study showing that if we expanded the current tax base, we could abolish all property taxes, actually lower the current sales tax rate and still generate the same amount of revenue.
