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NOARD INC ( formerly Northern Ohio Amateur Radio Depot ) no longer |
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ALSO SEE: Gap between rich and poor widening in troubled economy - GAP |
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Our Nations Forefathers must be turning in their grave October 8, 2004 TO: All Ohio Legislators The Federal Government must outright ban any and all State and Local Tax Abatements (read on). The Federal Government must reject the Multistate Tax Commission/Streamline Sales-Tax Project (read on). Also, the Ohio Republican Party is in the "Self-Destruct" mode and the Ohio Democrats are not offering a choice either. Ohio's General Assembly, for the last 40 years, have only widened the gap between those that have and those that don't. Ohio's Tax-System is in the direct opposite plan of our Nations's forefathers conception of having a land of "equal opportunity". The only thing that appears to be of importance to Ohio's Legislators is "Power" and "Money" derived by placing lobbyist and special-interest groups ahead of a fair and equitable tax system. The use of State/Local Tax-Abatements, in the name of "Job-Creation/Retention", is simply unfair to most other Ohio Taxpayers. Could any Ohio Legislator, Governor, or anyone from the Ohio Department of Development, still be able to Save or Create any Ohio jobs if you were forbidden to vary the required tax-terms associated with any project, and be forced to treat all Ohio taxpayers on a fair and equal tax basis. Tax-Abatement also opens a major protential for unethical Campaign Contributions to State Legislators who get involved with assisting Corporations getting "Tax-Breaks". If tax-abatements were not allowed, then the State would have to address true tax-reform in order to fairly compete with other States, and they would have to do it on an equal basis for all of their taxpayers (not just a few). While the State of Ohio demands that the Federal Government "butt-out" of the State's right of sovereignty, the State of Ohio wants to shove down the Federal Governments throat a plan to demand that Ohio's tax laws be imposed onto other businesses operating in other States, while at the same time, demand that all Ohio's businesses be forced to become the "tax-collector" for other State Governments. This will require all Ohio businesses to be experts, in just what is and what is not taxable, and at what rate, and be able to collect the proper amount of tax, and be able to accurately report it in a detailed report (to the State of Ohio) by total sales and tax-liability amounts for each of the 7,600 different taxing districts in the U.S.A.. This is what our tax-study experts call "simplifying" and making this more fair for all businesses. How many Ohio businesses, who financially rely on their "out-of-state" sales, will be able to stay in business, if the State of Ohio requires them to charge and collect the use-tax of other MTC member states? You could be putting 25,000 small Ohio retailers "out-of-business" overnight because you relied too much on sales-tax revenues to fund government services when you had no ability to police and enforce the Ohio use-tax from the Ohio consumer. The Federal Government needs to reject the Multistate Tax Commission/Streamline Sales Tax Project, and simply tell the States that you made your bed, you sleep in it! How can you have a so called "tax-simplification" plan that is supposed to "simplify" the sales tax system, when the first thing that is agreed to is that the individual States will still have the right to determine what is taxable, or not taxable, in their own State. In other words, they have agreed to disagree! While many are blaming Washington D.C. for the loss of jobs in Ohio, the real truth is with Ohio's outdated tax system, and the high-cost of labor. No policitian is ever going to blame a Union (in fear of losing votes) in causing a company to move an operation to a lower priced labor market (even overseas). You can also blame the consumer for not wanting to pay the higher cost associated with products manufactured by companies who pay their employees higher wages with benefits. You cannot blame the President or the Governor of Ohio for the loss of jobs. Ohio's tax-system was developed by Ohio Legislators in the General Assembly. The Federal tax-system was developed by the U.S. Congress. President's and Governor's do not make laws, you do. It is a total cop-out to blame the person at the top when you give them no other choice. So while your blaming the person at the top, understand this, you had the power to change the way the Ohio's Tax-System effects all Ohio taxpayers, but chose not make it fair. You even had the power to override any veto by the Ohio Governor if you had chose to overhaul Ohio's Tax-System (if that had been threatened), but didn't. But you cannot control the consumer. The consumer has 100 percent control of where they are going to end up spending their dollars. Consumer spending is two-thirds of this countries economy. You have not done anything to protect the Ohio business in remaining competitive with the Ohio consumer. You have only made them less competitive with the Ohio consumer. This has nothing to do with Washington DC, only Columbus, Ohio. I've noticed that there aren't any Ohio Legislative sessions planned until after the November election. I'll bet that the Whitehouse/National GOP has told the Ohio GOP to stay home since the Ohio GOP/Republican "Tax and Spend" politicians have really screwed up Ohio's economy to the point that Washington is getting the blame. Ohio Legislators have only torn apart Ohio's Intrastate economy. Every effort to develop any tax-reform has only widened the GAP between the rich and the poor in Ohio. Ohio Legislators appear to be only addressing the demands of large Corporate America, lobbyist groups and Special Interest by handing out enormous tax-abatements to any Ohio business that threatens to leave the State of Ohio, or not locate here in Ohio. These "non-tax-revenue" jobs you are creating is at the cost of the majority of the other Ohio taxpayers who are required to pay higher taxes and fees because of the loss of tax-revenues you built unfairly into Ohio's Tax Law. The "Total-Economic-Development-Packages" have been so extensive that the net increase in jobs in Ohio have caused tax-revenue-losses (I think you call these investments) netting $486,000.00 per "PART-TIME" job (DHL), and on the local level, 100 percent tax-abatements for all Real-Property, as well as, Personal-Property taxes for 15 years, plus a 1/3 loss of Income-Tax revenues for 17 years for A NET INCREASE OF ZERO JOBS IN OHIO (BMW Financial). Excused tax revenues (in the name of "Job-Creation/Rentention) have expanded so much in Ohio that even after you (the Ohio Legislators) doubled all fee revenues, increased the Sales-Tax Rate by TWENTY PERCENT, added 4 cents of additional State Gasoline-Tax, and have caused every School System to have to seek additional Property-Tax increases from every local individual and business taxpayer, your still headed for a projected $5,000,000,000.00 (5 Billion Dollar) short fall for the upcoming State Budget. Your using "VooDoo" math that states that for every $1.00 of tax-abatement that is handed out to a large corporation, it causes $60.00 of increase spending within a local area. If that's true, will Wilmington, Ohio see a $25,320,000,000.00 (25.32 Billion Dollar) increase in local spending as a result of your decision to give DHL a $422,000,000.00 Tax-Abatement package (over a 15 year period)? If only ten percent (a low figure) of that 25.32 billion came back to the State of Ohio in additional Sales, Income or Property Tax Revenues, it should be yielding over $2,500,000,000.00 (2.5 Billion dollars) of additional tax revenues for the State of Ohio (over a 15 year period), just from that one example. That means the Wilmington, Ohio area should be seeing an increase (over and above their current levels) of about the same amount of "economic-activity" (over the next 15 year period) as the total economic-activity that currently exist of all cities combined, within the entire County of Cuyahoga in Ohio, have in one year. I question seriously if that could ever happen based on the fact that the $422,000,000.00 tax-give-a-way was based only on adding an additional 900 jobs in Ohio, and most of those jobs are likely "part-time" jobs providing "no-benefits" to those individuals. I gave the above example (there are many others) because you (the Ohio Legislators) are using the theory that "tax-abatement" will stimulate economic growth by creating or retaining jobs. However, higher taxation has a direct effect on all taxpayers, who live within a local area with their ability to support the local economy. When you decease tax revenues from one group (those that get tax-abatements), your artificially creating the need to increase the tax revenues from the other group (those that don't get tax-abatements). This increase in taxation, has a direct and equal negative effect onto those (the non-tax-abatement group) in their ability for them to also stimulate their local economy. The recent decision by the Federal 6th Circuit Court (last month) declaring Ohio's use of an Investment Tax-Credit is unconstitutional, must stand. In fact, it should be expanded to include all tax abatements and tax credits not only on a State level, but a local level as well, and then expanded to all Federal Court Districts to include all 50 States. Any expenditures made by the State of Ohio, to reverse this decision by appealing this to a higher court, is an abuse of Ohios collected tax revenues, paid by all Ohio taxpayers, to overturn an unfair tax advantage that had been unfairly developed for a few, but didn't apply equally to all, but has now been corrected by that Federal Court Decision. Your increasing the "standard-of-living" and wealth for some Ohio taxpayers, by reducing the "standard-of-living" for many other Ohio taxpayers. The State of Ohio has no business getting involved with which companies pay lower taxes, and which ones must pay higher taxes. Everything should be on a fair and equal basis. If Ohio's taxes are out of line for a business to consider moving here, maybe it's out of line for all Ohio business already here. In fact, your requiring that the "low-income" (a nonqualifying tax-abatement category called retailers) be your collector and payee of your increased tax requirements needed to offset the tax-abatements your handing out to so called "high-income" jobs. The general attitude of Ohio's Tax-Law (as well as many economic analyst) treat Ohio Retailers as if they are not an important part of Ohio's economy. While your using "high-paying" jobs as a factor that can benefit local economy justifying tax-abatements, your assuming that "lower-paid" jobs are not meaningful in also supporting the local economy. The lack of reasonable tax-reform has taken away the ability of many Ohio's businesses (who are forced to pay low-income wages without benefits) to even be able to compete on a fair and equal basis with Ohio consumers. Yet, every effort to resolve Ohio's Tax Revenue shortages are causing you to unfairly put additional burdens onto those same Ohio's businesses, by risking major losses of their "out-of-state" sales by requiring them to become the "tax collectors" for many other State Governments, while requiring them to overhaul their entire accounting systems (perhaps at great expense) to be able to comply with your new MTC requirements, and your assuming they will still get the same out-of-state business they currently receive, and, what happens if they don't retain that out-of-state business because those consumers simply went to other businesses, in other States that were not a part of the MTC (Multistate Tax Commission). That's why the Federal Government needs to take action. State Governments (most) have taken tax abatement to such a high level in so many ways that they are fighting with each other to see who can "steal" jobs away (in the name of "Job-Creation") from other States, through the use of tax abatements. The State Governments have no business complaining to the Federal Government that their tax bases are erroding when its their own actions which are causing their overall tax revenues to drop putting unfair higher burdens onto other taxpayers. State Governments want to be able to be more competitive in order to retain and attract new business ventures, however, they (the States) have abused most of their own taxpayers and are trying to get the Federal Government to fix the problems that they themselves created with their own tax system.
I
agree, the Federal Government needs to correct the State Taxation
System by disallowing any and all When you expanded the Sales-Tax in Ohio, to include many services that weren't prior subject to the tax, you should have reduced the State Sales-Tax rate at the same time. You did exactly the opposite! You have given the Ohio consumer much more incentive to shop "out-of-state". Your'e still looking at a Five Billion dollar shortfall. What's next? Are you going to go against your word that this was a "temporary" tax increase and extend it or make it permanent? You probably are going to make it permanent and make plans to even raise it more while making additional plans to expand "tax-abatement" to more areas, perhaps lawyers, attorneys, accountants and consultants. After all, why should the retailers complain about sales-tax since its the consumer that pays it and not the retailer. Hello Legislators! Are you that "tuned-out" that you don't realize that many Ohio consumers are now shopping "out-of-state" (lowest-price, free-shipping and no-tax), and no longer need to shop at Ohio retailers? You should have been more concerned about the basic economy within Ohio, but you have only tried to expand Ohio's economy by using "gimmicks" to create more jobs using "tax-abatements" to steal other jobs from other States while making Ohio businesses less competitive with other Ohio consumers (individuals, as well as, businesses), shame on you. Since most other States economies are recovering at a faster pace than Ohio's, they (other States) will be in better position to approach Ohio's businesses with bigger "tax-breaks" in the near future to steal more of our businesses. When is one State going to sue another State, in Federal Court, for using unfair tax-abatement tactics to cause deliberate economic harm to another State? I'm looking to vote for an honest Legislator who has all Ohio taxpayers in mind. Got any ideas? A concerned Ohio taxpayer. Rick Wells
NOARD |
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WARNING/Governor Bob Taft is loose with the Taxpayers Checkbook June 18, 2004 TO: All members of the Ohio General Assembly
While
you're enjoying your summer break, Governor Taft may be increasing the
The
following is a quote from the State of Ohio Executive Budget, Fiscal
years 1998
January
1, 1997 (from Ohio Tax Commissioner Roger W. Tracy prepared for Governor
From
the cover letter:
From
page 1 of the introduction:
Our
examination of tax expenditures should not suggest that it is some
how "right"
The
Local, County and State high levels of "Tax-Breaks"
being currently handed out
Governor
Taft, the Ohio Department of Development, as well as many of you,
seem to
These
"Tax-Incentives" are costing Ohio Taxpayers today up to
$250,000.00 per new
The
point is that whenever you give any incentive away for anything,
your spending
The
June 10, 2004 OBM Monthly Financial Report was released today.
It reflects a
I
urge you to support HB-407 (Gibbs) and separate intrastate from interstate
I
urge you to REPEAL THE SALES-TAX INCREASE THAT WAS IN HB-95 which only
What
are you going to do if 10,000 additional Ohio Businesses (next
month) demand
On
the bright side - Ohio should consider putting a "CAP"
onto its State Income-Tax.
What
you're currently doing is simply not fair to all Ohio Taxpayers -
Businesses as Regards,
Rick
Wells email: k8sci@noard.com PH: 330 225-7373 |
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President Bush is being wrongfully blamed for Ohio's problems ! |
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