Clear battle lines in tax commission town hall

TaxCommission

The Governor's Blue Ribbon Tax Commission made a stop through Lexington last night to hear from concerned citizens about reforming the state's taxing structure. You can learn more about who serves on the commission and how it is structured here but in a nutshell, the stated goals of the commission include fairness, competitiveness, simplicity and compliance, elasticity and adequacy.

A packed auditorium at Bryan Station High School was in attendance with dozens of people signing up to speak to the commission. Essentially, the messages of everyone could be broken down into one of two camps:

• Those who identified themselves as state or public employees asking for increased funding for their specific interest area OR

• Business owners informing the commission about over-burdensome taxes

Basically it was the age old question: Does Kentucky have a revenue problem or a spending problem?

Kentucky has a spending problem.

The Courier Journal reported that The Kentucky Chamber of Commerce weighed in on this fact at the commission hearing:

Gov. Steve Beshear’s commission studying tax reform should consider ways to curb some soaring state expenses before thinking about raising taxes, the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce’s president said Tuesday.

And the chamber leader suggested easing taxes on businesses to make Kentucky more competitive with other states.

Dave Adkisson, president and CEO of the Kentucky Chamber, told the Governor’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Tax Reform, that additional money for education could be found by “addressing unsustainable state spending” in areas like Medicaid, public employee benefits and corrections.

Unsustainable state spending is identified as the problem NOT senseless theft from businesses in the form of increased taxes.

If you are interested in learning more about the tax commission, John Garen, the chairman of the Bluegrass Institute's Board of Scholars discusses it here.