Burnt Orange Report

Dr. Deuell's Tax Tonic

By Vince Leibowitz

Guest Post By Vince Leibowitz

Leave it to my state Senator, Dr. Bob Deuell (R-Greenville) to think "outside the box." Way, way, way outside the box.

In Sunday's Tyler Morning Telegraph, Deuell offers forth a plan that "could allow businesses to choose the type of tax they pay, as part of a school finance fix that would also lower property taxes for homeowners."

The TMT notes:

Businesses could pick from a list that might include payroll tax, a tax on net profits, a tax on business activity, explains Deuell, a Greenville Republican. Most legislators agree that some kind of business tax is inevitable, but they're divided on what form it should take. Each form has supporters and critics.

"There's no one tax that is completely fair to all businesses," Deuell said. "Every tax is a little more and less fair to certain types of businesses."

That's where Deuell's plan comes in.

"I've gone to Lt. Gov. (David) Dewhurst and suggested we give businesses a choice on how they pay," said Deuell, who is readying for the start of the legislative session on Tuesday. "Perhaps we could give a cafeteria-style list to them and just say, 'pick your tax.' Some might choose payroll, others might choose net profits. It would be up to them."

Ah, yes. A virtual buffet of taxation choices.

Though I'm not a Nobel-prize winning economist, I see some serious problems with Deuell's plan. First of all, wouldn't it be human nature to pick the tax which would require your company to pay the least possible taxes? I have serious trouble believing that a company would want to pick the tax that gives them the greatest tax burden just to be a good corporate citizen, which brings me to my second point: wouldn't such a Luby's/Wyatt's/Furr's/Golden Corral style buffet of choices mean that we'd depend on the consience of corporate Texas to pay its fair share? (Wonder which option Enron would have picked?)

I'm fond of a plan advocated by former State Rep. Bob Glaze, which came out a few years ago after the Joint Select Committee on Public School Finance co-chaired by former State Representative Paul Sadler,released its report, which discussed a combination of a gross reciepts tax and a value added tax for school funding. As I recall, the taxes would affect the state's largest businesses more than any others.

Though Deuell seems to have thought out his plan, I can't find any actual legislation that he's filed concerning it for the coming session.

Strangely enough, in the same issue touting Dr. Deuell's Tax Tonic (take one giant swig straight from the bottle prior to every legislative session) there is an article quoting yours truly about taking back Senate District 2, the very seat held by Dr. Deuell.

I'm slightly miffed at the writer of this article (Roy Maynard, though it's unbylined) because he intimates that our SD2 Summit is somehow affiliated with the Democratic Party of Texas and its Take Back Texas campaign. He gets this from our logo, on which I put the phrase, "Take Back East Texas." While we're working with TBT and TDP, we aren't "affiliated" with them. We'd love to be and would be if they ask, but it rubs me the wrong way that the Tyler paper's saying we are, because I never said we were. (It's always great when ex-journalists are misquoted. We can get militant about it).

Anyway, since I know a lot of "party regulars" read this blog, I'm sorry about that, even though it's not my fault!

Vince Leibowitz is County Chairman of the Democratic Party of Van Zandt County. He owns t-shirt on which is imprinted the following: "You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say will be misquoted and used against you."