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BUSINESS GROUP COMES OUT FOR TAKING AND TAXING SOME BUSINESSES TO BENEFIT OTHERS

December 14, 2007

The Greater Des Moines Partnership, our local chamber of commerce, has unveiled its legislative agenda for the 2008 legislative session. We can only hope it does as well as their big goal in 2007, Project Destiny; the sales tax increase managed a spectacular 15% of the vote in a special referendum last summer.

The Partnership's legislative agenda is virtually indistinguishable from that of legislative Democrats. It includes:

- Loosening eminent domain restrictions, making it easier for well-connected businessmen to use the state to sieze coveted real estate.

- Making it easier for local governments to negotiate giveways without having to tell those pesky voters.

- More funding for the Grow Iowa Values Fund, so politicians can tax give away money taxed away from some businesses to lure and subsidize their competitors.

The Partnership makes a pretty statement on sound principles of taxation:

The Partnership supports creating a more competitive business climate to encourage business expansion and foster the growth of new and existing businesses through comprehensive and meaningful tax reform and removing regulations that act as hidden taxes, inhibit innovation and investment, hinder productivity, and stifle economic growth. The Partnership believes Iowa’s tax code should encourage business growth, limit the size and costs of government, and reflect the principles of equity, neutrality, simplicity, and predictability.

In the next breath, the partnership comes out for tax credits that stifle business growth, increase government, and violate the principles of equity, neutrality and simplicity. These violations include tax credits for the insurance industry, a "wage benefit tax credit," rehab credits, and research credits - all of which favor some taxpayers at the expense of others and require government involvement to administer, and none of which are simple.

Other provisions include:

- Protecting TIF funding, so that property tax payers can also be taxed to lure and subsidize their competitors.

- A 2% hotel and motel tax.

The only positive things on the agenda are lip service for tax reform and opposition to "combined" corporation reporting and gross receipts taxes.

A real pro-business, pro-growth group would come out forthrightly for specific and drastic state tax reform and would oppose the Iowa Values Fund corporate welfare scheme. It would draft and push a tax plan that would bring the income tax rate down below 5% while slashing or eliminating our highest-in-the-nation corporation tax. The Des Moines Partnership, unfortunately, acts more as a business affiliate of the Polk County political establishment.

Tags: greater des moines partnership.iowa tax policy.

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