Representative Karla Lems (R-16/Canton) may have hit on a new approach to property tax relief: just make property taxes voluntary!
The Canton Republican hasn’t proposed that bill yet, but the germ of the idea rests in her approach to reining in the Future Fund. House Bill 1230 would make the tax employers pay to support the Governor’s economic development projects voluntary. Businesses that want to chip in to the Future Fund, those who trust the Governor not to use the money as a slush fund the way Kristi Noem did, would have to file a form to opt in to the additional “investment fee”, which is at most 0.53% of wages the employer pays.
House State Affairs somehow approved Lems’s voluntary employer tax proposal yesterday, over the objection of the Chamber of Commerce and numerous other crony capitalists who apparently enjoy paying this tax but want to make sure all their competitors pay it, too. I can’t imagine the cronies and GOP leaders will let this voluntary tax proposal get much further. Not only would HB 1230 deny the Governor the chance to feed cash to friends and corporate donors, but it would also set a precedent that could get the folks calling for property tax relief all excited: if businesses can choose whether or not to pay a tax, why can’t homeowners? If property taxes are just too high, why not let homeowners opt out for a year or two until they can afford to contribute more to their local schools and roads and deputy sheriffs?
We already know the answer to that question: in a democracy, taxes are already voluntary. We, through our elected representatives if not through ballot initiative, choose to enact taxes to cover the costs of doing civil society’s business. We then agree to all pay our share of those taxes. If we don’t like taxes, we don’t allow individuals to simply choose not to pay them, any more than we allow individuals who disagree with speed limits or prohibitions on prostitution or murder to opt out of those laws.
Making the Future Fund tax voluntary isn’t unreasonable. House Bill 1230 subtextually contends that the Future Fund, state handouts to promote “economic development”, aren’t vital to the business of civil society. House Bill 1230 reasonably argues that the state doesn’t need money to subsidize certain business ventures. But in making that argument, HB 1230 makes the Future Fund tax something other than a tax. HB 1230 essentially makes the Future Fund a charity, supported by donations from willing participants.
Charity might work for something non-essential like gubernatorial handouts to boost jobs programs for Republican insiders and glamour-shoot rodeos and shooting ranges that the Legislature refuses to fund. But charity doesn’t support universal K-12 education or plow the Interstates. Grafting Representative Lems’s proposal to make Future Fund taxes optional onto property taxes could make for an instructive discussion of civic obligation, but letting everyone opt out of taxes would ultimately undermine essential state functions.
We already volunteer to pay taxes by volunteering to uphold democracy. Taxes are the price we pay for democracy, and we all must agree to pay that price.
A penny for your thoughts?