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(No revenue means no services = the goal of the Teabaglicans. - promoted by susanthe)
Forget about poor old Mr. Harty. A bigger story this next week is the legislature's plan to dismantle the state's revenue structure. The House will be voting on 4 bills that go a long way towards fulfilling Grover Nyquist's vision of defunding state government. All 4 have been recommended by the tax committee and will almost certainly pass the House.
The first is HB213, which reduces the business profits tax by a cool $20,000,000 per year. The reason for this is to make NH 'more competitive' of course.
That's nothing compared to HB557, which for all intents and purposes eliminates business taxes on LLCs, proprietorships, and partnerships. It allows these entities to claim any profits they earn are actually personal income to the owners, so they can avoid having to pay tax on their business profits. And since we don't have a personal income tax, they won't pay taxes on it at all. The cost to the state for this nifty tax dodge is between $25 and $50 million per year, no one knows for sure.
Then there's HB156, which reduces our tobacco tax by between $7 and $14 million per year. The sad sack who wrote the blurb in the House Journal believes, or at least says he believes, this will somehow increase state revenues. It won't.
So, in one week, the legislature will be passing permanent tax cuts equal to as much as $84 million per year or $168 million for the biennium. That's how serious our GOP majority is about solving our budget deficit.
On top of this, the House will send to the senate CACR6, a constitutional amendment that will require the vote of a 60% majority to increase any tax or license fees in the future. The idea behind this is to allow a minority of the legislature to permanently prevent any increases in state revenue. This in a state that is chronically short of the funds needed for basic services.
