Legislative+Savings

Excerpt from the DBNJ - Pierre Tristam: · //Net new annual revenue from restoring estate tax: $600 million.// · //Net new annual revenue from an extra 5-cent gas tax: $520 million.// · //Net new revenue from an extra 64-cent cigarette tax: $640 million.// · //Net new revenue from a 15 percent soda tax: $500 million.// If they wanted to, legislators could run Florida like a civilized state. They choose not to, because voters -- you -- don't want them to.
 * Estate tax:** In 2002, Florida's estate tax generated $558 million. Last year, it generated $0, because unlike 17 other states, Florida went along with President George W. Bush's phasing out of the estate tax (at least until 2011). Eliminating the estate tax is poor public policy. It concentrates wealth instead of circulating it, crimping, not stimulating, growth. It's also elitist social policy. It eliminates taxes on rich dead people while denying services to living, breathing millions. Restoring the estate tax to its reasonable, pre-Bush level would hurt no one, the fatal damage being already done. It would merely reduce rich survivors' windfalls while benefiting anyone with a stake in the state's general revenue fund.
 * Fuel taxes:** The state levies a 21.66-cent-per-gallon tax on gas and diesel. The tax brings in $2.3 billion a year to maintain the state's infrastructure. When gas is at $4.50 a gallon, an additional tax may seem cruel. When gas is below $2 a gallon, as it is now (including taxes), //not// raising the gas tax is foolish. It encourages a return to gas-guzzling and eliminates incentives for research into alternative fuels. In Florida, one extra penny per gallon brings in $104 million, according to the Department of Revenue. In New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Wisconsin, the state gas tax is above 30 cents a gallon. Florida could easily raise its tax 5 cents per gallon without burdening wallets: The price went up that much last week, only oil company shareholders and Saudi Arabia will benefit.
 * Cigarette tax:** The tax on a typical cigarette pack is 34 cents. It raises $417 million a year. Only four states have lower cigarette taxes. Steeper tobacco taxes discourage smoking, especially among the young, while providing money for health programs. Even absent a budget crisis, Florida's cigarette tax should be tripled. There'd be no pity for smokers. It would still be a smaller excise tax than in half the states. For every cent in extra cigarette tax, the state would raise $12.3 million in new revenue. Make that $10 million, assuming a drop in smokers.
 * Beverage tax:** Florida's tax on beer, at 48 cents per gallon, is more than double the national average, so we won't touch that one. The tax on wine, at $2.25 per gallon, is also more than twice the national average (big deal: Anyone willing to shell out $15 for a Bordeaux should happily pay an extra $1 for, say, those substance-abuse programs the state is slashing all over the place). Leaving those taxes aside, there's one beverage excise tax Florida, whose collective girth is nothing to celebrate, should jump on: a tax on soft drinks, about 10 cents on a typical can.
 * Add it all up**: $2.26 billion. Deficit erased. That's without eliminating sales-tax exemptions ($12.3 billion), raising the sales tax by 1 penny on the dollar ($3.8 billion), restoring the tax on intangibles such as stocks and bonds to pre-2001 levels ($300 million-$400 million), or raising the corporate income tax, currently a paltry 5.5 percent (12th-lowest in the country), to 8.5 percent ($1 billion).

[|Florida Center for Fiscal and Economic Policy]

= Finding Funds to Help Balance the Budget: // Getting Our Heads Out of the Sand //= As advocates begin the process of discussing and disseminating their budget requests and priorities for the next legislative session, please take note of the budgets **YOUR** Florida Legislature is **NOT** cutting -- see below. This year, for the first time (in most cases), __some__ enlightened legislators actually began to address the money that would be available if the Legislature decides to seriously start closing loopholes and curtailing subsidies.

It is estimated that a serious effort in that regard could generate revenues in excess of $400 million. Click on the links below for a better picture. Then feel free to share this information with your legislators, families and friends and everyone in your mailing lists. All of the documents are in Acrobat Reader Format (.PDF). [|Budget Cuts or Tax Increases at the State Level: Which is Preferable During an Economic Downturn?] [|Partial Loopholes List] [|Passive Investment Companies (PICs) Subsidiaries] [|Sports Subsidies]
 * .;;[,lp[l0ok [|Facing Deficits, Many States Are Imposing Cuts That Hurt Vulnerable Residents]