So the Fort Worth Star Telegram doesn’t mind the new business tax; big surprise, they also like big government. In an editorial on Thursday, the Star Telegram opined that “it’s impossible to know what the tax’s real impact will be” because state bean counters won’t tally the take until August. Ah, the bliss of being economically illiterate. Of course, they also do their best to avoid the taxes they advocate.
We know that tax incidence analysis shows business taxes hurt the poor more than any other kind of taxation. Why? Take the small business owner I chatted with in Houston a few days ago. His business is facing a staggering $18,000 tax hit. He and his family are going to take home a little less – and he isn’t going to fill a new entry-level job he’d planned. Such is the real-world impact of business taxes. By the way, this fellow’s home property tax burden is higher now than ever; so much for the property tax relief the business tax was supposed to provide.
The Star Telegram, like many newspapers around the state, has been remarkably consistent in their calls for other people to pay higher taxes. Without noting the irony, the editors note that the newspaper has used every conceivable loophole to avoid paying those taxes. No word on what tactic the Star Telegram is using to avoid the new business tax they promoted.
Business taxes hide the cost of government and can cool, or kill, an economy.
FYI, this is the same Fort Worth Star Telegram that just announced they are scaling back their Capitol bureau and making layoffs. High taxes on the business side, leftists content in print… What’s not to love? You see, the laws of economics apply even to the illiterate.
