June 30, 2004

Hypocrisy Among Tennessee's Leftists? No! Really?

Tennessee blogger Mark A. Rose has a very good letter-to-the-editor published in The Tennessean yesterday highlighting the hypocrisy and inconsistency of the mis-named left-wing Tennesseans for Fair Taxation, which supports a demonstrably unfair proposed state income tax. Regarding comments from a TFT official in this story in the June 25 Tennessean, Rose wrote:

The hypocrisy coming from Tennesseans for Fair Taxation (TFT) is amusing. TFT opposes a measure currently working its way through Congress that would allow residents of non-income tax states to deduct the sales taxes they pay on federal tax returns.

This is a curious about-face by TFT, because if you visit their Web site and read ''Six Reasons to Support the Tax Relief & Reform Act,'' you will find reason No. 3: ''It will save $580 million now being sent to Washington. By changing from a sales-tax based system to an income-tax based system, Tennessee can take advantage of federal laws that allow taxpayers to deduct state income taxes from their federal returns, saving Tennessee taxpayers millions.''

Federal deductibility is a major selling point of income tax advocates. But since efforts to pass an income tax failed two years ago, TFT apparently opposes expanding the federal deductibility to include sales taxes.

According to TFT's chairman, ''This does nothing to solve the problem of unfair taxes in Tennessee. If anything, it makes matters worse.'' Well, it makes matters worse for TFT, because expanding federal deductibility takes away a battering ram used in years past to sell the income tax.

It is apparent that TFT isn't interested in saving that $580 million being sent to Washington after all. It just wants to stick Tennessee taxpayers with an income tax, and in reality doesn't care one iota about federal deductibility.