“Since the very fact of taxation is an interference with the free market, it is particularly incongruous and incorrect for advocates of a free market to advocate uniformity of taxation.”
Taxation does not become fair by being levied equally – nor does uniform taxation actually create a level playing field or foster equality amongst men.
Yet, Alabama’s Big 10 mayors are falsely relying on exactly this tired and tortured appeal to equality in their latest push to increase taxes on Alabamians.
As Jeff Poor reports for 1819 News:
In the proposal offered for the 2025 legislative session by State Rep. Chris England (D-Tuscaloosa), the so-called Alabama Simplified Sellers Use Tax (SSUT) rate would increase from 8% to 9.25% and be distributed to the Education Trust Fund (ETF) budget, the General Fund budget, local boards of education, counties and municipalities.
…
Proponents claim they do not necessarily want to charge more for online purchases but to level the playing field for their brick-and-mortar retailers.
‘I don't want residents to necessarily pay more, but I do want the equality that's in place for the sales structure we have in place right now as a municipality,’ Madison Mayor Paul Finley recently told Huntsville TV's WAFF. ‘If we're at 9% that should be what our internet sales tax comes back to, just to have an equality standpoint.’
Think again of what Finley just said, “I don’t want residents to necessarily pay more, but…”
Ah, there it is. In politician-speak there’s always a big hairy “but” right around the corner.
Indeed, whenever a politician publicly claims he’s not trying to do something, he should be most suspected of doing that something — especially when such public appeals are wrapped up in high ideals and spat at common people as though they’re common sense.
Alabama’s Big 10 mayors may claim they are trying to make things more equal through increased taxation, but that is a sure sign their efforts will do the exact opposite. They say they don’t want people to pay more because, in fact, they want people to pay them more.
Despite the conventional wisdom of municipal leaders, taxation is always and forever an unequal affair, whereby those in government say “all are equal” while behaving as if they are more equal than others.
These government arbiters of equality always enjoy unequal power and privilege — exercised in the name of the common good at the unequal expense of certain members of the community.
Why? Because of the very nature of the State.
Murray Rothbard explains:
[T]he State must separate society into two classes, or castes: the taxpaying caste and the tax-consuming caste. The tax consumers consist of the full-time bureaucracy and politicians in power, as well as the groups which receive net subsidies, i.e., which receive more from the government than they pay to the government. These include the receivers of government contracts and of government expenditures on goods and services produced in the private sector. It is not always easy to detect the net subsidized in practice, but this caste can always be conceptually identified.
…
One thing we know without difficulty, however. Bureaucrats are net tax consumers. As we pointed out above, bureaucrats cannot pay taxes. Hence, it is inherently impossible for bureaucrats to pay income taxes uniformly with everyone else. And therefore the ideal of uniform income taxation for all is an impossible goal. We repeat that the bureaucrat who receives $8,000 a year income and then hands $1,500 back to the government is engaging in a mere bookkeeping transaction of no economic importance (aside from the waste of paper and records involved). For he does not and cannot pay taxes; he simply receives $6,500 a year from the tax fund.
Furthermore, even if the government does levy a uniform sales tax, it does not affect businesses and consumers equally, nor does it necessarily “level the playing field.”
For instance, I expect the largest online retailers to welcome such a tax, if they haven’t already. They can easily handle the increased costs of compliance compared to smaller online competitors – all while still having major advantages over brick-and-mortar shops despite the uniform tax!
Indeed, it is an incredibly uncertain prospect that brick-and-mortar shops would benefit, even marginally, from their online competition being taxed 1.25% more – but what is certain is that the people will be forced to pay more to governments whose leaders say they don’t necessarily want people to pay more.
Some level playing field!
If Alabama’s Big 10 mayors wish to truly help small brick-and-mortar shops in their cities, they should embrace the innately unequal, illiberal nature of government rather than continue to sell the lie that uniform taxation somehow magically fosters equality.
Rather than increase sales taxes for all taxpayers in Alabama, the state and municipal governments should grant tax exemptions to small businesses that choose to invest in their cities.
Indeed, the fairest tax for businesses and consumers alike is no tax at all.
Joey Clark is a native Alabamian and is currently the host of the radio program News and Views on News Talk 93.1 FM WACV out of Montgomery, AL M-F 12 p.m. - 3 p.m. His column appears every Tuesday in 1819 News. To contact Joey for media or speaking appearances as well as any feedback, please email joeyclarklive@gmail.com. Follow him on X @TheJoeyClark or watch the radio show livestream.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to Commentary@1819news.com.
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