ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, January 27, 1997 TAG: 9701270021
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
AT LEAST 27 other states exempt food from their sales tax. It's past time Virginia did, too.
Credit Norfolk Del. William Robinson for at least putting the issue on the General Assembly's plate. He's introduced a bill to repeal the outrageously regressive tax that falls hardest on Virginia's lowest-income citizens.
It's the filet mignon among numerous chopped-liver tax bills, and Virginians should let their representatives know they don't want it shoved to the back of the legislative fridge to grow moldy.
That's been the fate of past efforts to repeal the food tax, which began practically the day it was imposed in 1966. Lawmakers, who have voracious appetites for spending, have traditionally argued: Sorry, the state just can't afford to give up the revenue. (So low, indeed, are expectations for Robinson's bill that most Virginia newspapers, this one included, devoted only one line, if that, to the fact that this significant tax-relief legislation has been introduced.)
But ``sorry - can't afford it'' is not acceptable. Though the food tax provides a major chunk of change for the state budget (about $451 million a year), that revenue could be replaced by passing or adjusting other taxes - much fairer taxes - if lawmakers had the political gumption.
Just one example of where they might look in the cupboard: The state's individual income-tax rate is 5.75 percent on all income greater than $17,000. A wealthy individual earning $200,000 or more a year, in other words, pays the same rate as someone earning $17,000. Adjusting the income brackets, and raising the rate on those with highest incomes, would be considerably fairer than a tax on a basic necessity of life, a tax that takes a disproportionate share of the income of the poor.
Robinson's bill takes a sensible approach. It would phase out the 4.5 percent sales tax on food, beginning in 1998, by 1 percent each year until it's off the books by 2002. That would give legislators more than enough time to make up revenues lost to the state as well as local governments.
Taxpayers need to speak up about Robinson's bill. Lawmakers, who owe it to Virginians to give them this tax cut, ought to pass it.
LENGTH: Short : 45 lines KEYWORDS: GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1997by CNB