Lex Anteinternet: Opposition to the Big Box Tax, and to Lifting the ...: One of the bills that did well in the state House was the bill to impose a sort of equalization tax on large entities that are multi state ..
The bill, that is, to tax the income of large out of state retailers.
Senator Cale Case, the conservative Fremont County legislator, favored the bill and, as a local businessman, was well situated to note that out of state retailers had taken advantage of Wyoming. In the end, that didn't matter as the on slot of lobbyist and what not who descended on Cheyenne and the editorial pages of the newspapers, and which spread out to local Facebook campaigns and apparently lots of emails, raised the traditional fear in Wyoming of an income tax.
So the bill died.
In letting it die, the legislature, in a time in which money is short, basically voted to let those large out of state retailers keep money they'd already budgeted into their costs. So Wyoming consumers will continue to pay the same amount for things they buy at Sam's Club or Walmart. The retailer will continue to keep the part they budgeted for taxes but which Wyoming doesn't impose. Local businesses that struggle against big box giants will continue to do so, but then they would have anyhow.
The Tribune quoted Case, who delivered an apparently impassioned speech from the floor as stating:
When (small businesses) made profits, those profits stayed in the community,” he said. “Now, they’re scattered to stockholders all over the world. None of these companies’ headquarters are here; none of the value is spread over here.
And
Most people haven’t thought about it for five minutes when they send me an email, saying they don’t support the tax,"
No matter, the Senator who was responsible for keeping the bill from coming to a vote even apparently disputed that Wyoming really has a budget problem, which is contrary to the general view.
Which gets to why this likely didn't pass, it's a matter of tax philosophies.
Yes, philosophies, a plural.
Now, we can't simply discount the onslaught of opposition, with most of that opposition really centered outside of our borders. I understand why outfits like WalMart oppose a bill like this. . . they get to keep the money. In their view, as most people identify their economic interest with societies' best interest, they likely feel that makes their bottom lines better and that's better for everyone. If it means the demise of small businesses locally, well that's just progress or its not really thought of at all.
Indeed, for those who have grown up in the big box era, and that's now a lot of people, that's likely what the state of the world simply is like. There are a fair number of younger people who oppose big box retailers on a philosophical basis, but most people don't think of things like that. So its easy for the Wyomingites who oppose income taxation in general to view this bill with suspicion.
And then there are those who regard a bill like this as the foot in the door, or the camel's nose under the tent, or stepping out on a slippery slope, or whatever the proper analogy is. The thought is sure, I won't be paying an income tax today. . . but maybe in the future an income tax is expanded to apply to my business. . . or maybe I'll cross a state border and some other state will tax me if I get big (which in fact is already the case, they would).
Finally, there are those who really don't believe that the state has an income problem, but a spending one. The head of the committee that that killed the bill seems to be taking that view. That same view was close to the "starve the government into conservatism" approach that some in the George Bush II administration advocated. No money, smaller government, was the logic. That only partially worked in the Federal Government, but because the state government works differently, it really could have an impact of that type locally. When things drop away, they tend to be the things that are more liberal, so to speak, than conservative.
And finally, there are those who oppose taxation that has a philosophical underpinning, which it can be argued that this might. Closely related to that are those who simply oppose taxation except as necessary, on a philosophical basis.
Conversely, there are those who favor it, and Case was coming close to making a classic Distributist argument in his comments. Tax the large out of state retailers to try to benefit the small local ones. There's a real logic to that, but in order to make that work, the tax would have to be at a much, much, higher level. Of course, Case didn't advocate that actually, but rather simply noted that this was a way for the state to try to recapture money it lost when local retailers went out of business.
Anyway you look at it, this effort appears dead this year and will likely be for the next several. Long term, what happens in the state's economy, something we've been recently exploring, may determine what the future of such efforts will have to be.
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