ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, May 18, 1996 TAG: 9605200026
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
IT'S NOT a done deal. Powerful state senators oppose it, huffing that it's fiscally irresponsible. But North Carolina's House of Representatives has voted 111-3 to repeal that state's sales tax on food. If North Carolina does it, can Virginia be far behind?
Oh, yeah. Far behind, at the clip the commonwealth has been moving.
Virginia's politicians have been talking about repealing the repulsive food tax well over two decades, practically from the time it was imposed in 1966. Promising to try really hard to get rid of it has proved a warm and fuzzy vote-getter. Once elected, the line changes: ``Gee, we'd like to, but there's just no way.''
Oh no?
Inclusion of food in the sales tax has been a major revenue pillar, producing about half a billion dollars annually for the state's coffers. But it effectively props up tax policies that favor the rich and hurt the poor. If Virginia's governors and lawmakers seriously wanted to repeal the food tax, they could find ways to make up for lost revenue. Among the better ways:
* Make state-income tax rates more progressive. The top rate now is 5.75 percent, meaning that those with taxable income of, say, $100,000 or $200,000 pay the same rate as those with taxable income of $17,000.
* Increase the 4.5 percent sales tax to 5 percent (or more if necessary) on nonessential items - food not being one of those.
* Substantially raise the state's excise tax on cigarettes - now a puny 2.5 cents a pack, the lowest in the nation - and raise taxes on alcoholic beverages while you're at it.
* Scrap some of the tax breaks the state now gives to people who don't need them - tax credits, for instance, for Virginians who are 62 and older, even if they have incomes of $100,000 or $500,000 a year.
The problem, of course, with any or all of these options is that they require a modicum of political courage. Tax increases hitting the tobacco industry, which keeps numerous lawmakers in servitude? Or hitting wealthy contributors to the campaigns of statewide and legislative candidates?
So much safer, easier to leave as is the tax on food, which soaks the poor in such small increments that who even notices it after, lo, these 30 years?
Perhaps working-poor Virginians are too busy struggling to figure out that, when they pay 4.5 percent on groceries, they're giving up a disproportionate share of their income in relation to the prosperous shoppers standing with them in the checkout line.
Perhaps Virginia voters won't object that, while everybody pays the same rate, the tax penalizes and exploits the commonwealth's working classes, by taking more from them for a necessity that all need for survival.
The North Carolina House has recognized that the sales tax on food is not only regressive, it's immoral. Would that Virginia's legislators suffered a similar stroke of conscience.
LENGTH: Medium: 55 linesby CNB