TAX: Don't hurt property owners

The current debate over the elimination of the personal property tax (which I have paid for the past 20 years) has avoided discussing one element, maybe purposely. I read an article about Ground Force paying in the neighborhood of $15,000 a year and that it would be nice if it would be repealed. How many customers do you think they have in Idaho, if any? The profits they collect through the sale of their products are derived from outside this state.

How about Micron, who is another proponent? Sure, there are businesses in Idaho that sell to Idaho residences and the personal property tax is “built in” to their cost of goods sold, but, this collection ends up being paid as a user tax and not a property tax. We have tried for years to pass on our costs of services to others that reside outside our borders. That’s the whole premise behind the taxes on hotel rooms, isn’t it? A way for us to collect some fees from those who impact our essential services yet don’t pay the lion’s share to fund them.

I believe that replacing the personal property tax with increased property taxes or school levies “punishes” property owners that are already asked to pay an ever increasing share of government costs. If there is any replacement in this tax it should be targeted at those entities that sell their wares beyond the state lines. The $141 million replacement proposed by our governor will surely come from state residences in one form or another. I am not naive in understanding those in favor of elimination have expressed that lower costs to business will increase the base by attracting future companies to Idaho. After all, I am a Republican, but I’m also a property owner. The country is getting closer each year into applying state sales tax to Internet purchases. Can we wait until we can replace one user tax with another?

PETER WARD

Spirit Lake