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IOWA AMNESTY FIZZLES; IT'S MY FAULT

November 02, 2007

It looks like the Iowa Tax Amnesty has fallen far short of its authors' expectations, says the Des Moines Register:

A program that temporarily allowed Iowans to skip all penalties and half of their unpaid interest on delinquent taxes collected less than 25 percent of what state officials had predicted, preliminary estimates show.

The program, known as tax amnesty, ended at midnight Wednesday. State officials had hoped to collect $54 million in the program that began Sept. 4. As of Thursday, they had collected $13 million.

Practitioners who have worked with both amnesties say that the one that ended Wednesday was much less attractive than the 1986 version. The Branstad amnesty allowed taxpayers to continue to contest their tax liability if they paid under the amnesty; the Culver amnesty requires the taxpyer to surrender on contested issues. That's why the Branstad amnesty was able to raise $35 million, while the Culver one hasn't acheived half that amount in inflated 2007 dollars (of course, the Branstad $35 million was probably overstated, as some taxpayers were surely successful in their challenges).

But House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy says the real fault is with critics of the amnesty, like the Tax Update and House Minority Leader Rants:

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a Des Moines Democrat, blamed the skimpy collection in part to "over-the-top and fairly reckless statements" from opponents of the program, who had called it a "tax break for tax cheats."

Right. People didn't take advantage of the amnesty because of those of us who pointed out that it makes chumps out of folks who pay their taxes, or who came forward to get out of trouble before the amnesty was enacted. That intimidated people who would otherwise straighten out their taxes. Who knew that people who don't pay their taxes were so sensitive?

Tags: iowa tax amnesty.iowa tax policy.

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