Simple and fair
Insight
|State Budget & Tax
Montpelier should be trying to make the education tax system simpler and fairer. But Republican Gov. Jim Douglas is proposing changes that would make the system more complicated and less fair: He’d increase taxes on middle-income Vermonters and lower them on wealthier ones.
Sound crazy? Then how about this: The Democratic-controlled House appears to be moving in the same direction.
Read Paul Cillo’s op-ed, from the Mar. 14 Times Argus and Rutland Herald.
It is sad to see the legislature with such a herd mentality. If the leadership would simply propose clear changes that make the property tax more progressive, the rank and file might know how to move. Why not tax ALL property including intangible assets—that would make the tax progressive and fair for the first time in 70 years. If one had to pay a tax on a mutual fund at the same rate as one pays it on real estate, just imagine the shift in taxes AND reduced pressure on land for “highest and best use” development.