PropertyTaxReform

Connecticut: Should Cities Use a Sales Tax?

Newspapers in New London ("Urban Mayors Push For Local Sales-tax Option") and Stamford ("Malloy: Cities should have sales tax option") had articles today describing 4 Connecticut cities' mayors' aversion to increasing the property tax.

Four urban mayors, including Kevin Cavanagh of New London, urged the legislature Monday to give municipalities the ability to levy a local sales tax of up to 1 percentage point to raise revenue without resorting to property-tax increases.

The articles quote Dannell Malloy of Stamford, Kevin Cavanagh of New London, Bill Finch of Bridgeport, and Dan DeStefano of New Haven as endorsing the idea.

Malloy, along with mayors Bill Finch of Bridgeport, John DeStefano of New Haven and Kevin Cavanagh of New London, said cities need other options for raising revenue besides burdening constituents with more property taxes.

Florida: How Should We Tax Ourselves?

Educators: tax plan skepticism

link: http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20080319/NEWS/803190317
The article reports the reactions of teachers' and school administrators' organizations to proposed property tax reductions in Florida. I want to focus on a fairly short section of the article:

The plan is intended to stimulate the economy by making homes more affordable and allowing people to keep more spending money.

Under it, lawmakers would have three choices to recoup the lost funds:

• cut spending,
  
• expand the sales tax to include other items or services, or
  
• raise money through a new source.

So much money would need to be raised that proponents expect lawmakers would be forced to close sales tax exemptions on everything from bottled water to pet food to sky boxes in sports arenas.