Your Turn

Two weeks ago, the governor held a press conference complaining that legislators had tabled some of his tax bills in the House Taxation Committee. Apparently he thought we should hold our noses and look the other way when faced with some of the worst bills to be heard this session. Excuse me while I set my rubber stamp aside and look at the details of the governor's tax bills.

The tax committee's opposition to these bills should not be construed as somehow supporting tax cheaters, as some have suggested. Nobody condones that type of illegal activity. But to look only at that small aspect of these proposals and ignore everything else is simply irresponsible.

There are no limitations on DOR's authority to chase tax cheats, and we fully support DOR aggressively bringing them to justice. But the other parts of the governor's bills will have a far greater impact on honest taxpayers than on non-compliers.

Many of the governor's tax proposals are designed to create a bloated Department of Revenue (DOR), which is the state version of the IRS. Just look at his budget proposal to increase the DOR's size by 67 percent as an example. As the governor purports to go after "tax cheats" or "close tax loopholes," the real story is a massive increase in the DOR bureaucracy.

Many legislators in the House Taxation Committee are very concerned about this move to increase the state's tax bureaucracy, especially when the state just finished collecting record amounts from taxpayers last year.

In addition to increasing the size of Montana's IRS, the governor's tax bills also make tax compliance more difficult for everybody. If your taxes are already complicated enough, consider that the governor is proposing over 50 additions to the tax code. He's spent a lot of time vilifying "Big Business" by insinuating that they're not paying their fair share of taxes, but the tax changes he's proposing affect everyone from the smallest individual filer to the largest corporation.

Consider that over eighty-percent of Montanans work for small business. It's not the big guys with their teams of CPAs who are going to have trouble complying with unnecessarily-complicated tax laws; it's going to be the Mom and Pop stores as well.

The fact is that the vast majority of tax filers are following the law. In fact, corporate tax collections for this biennium were almost seventy-percent more than originally projected. And it's not just business n individual taxpayers also paid more than expected in property and income taxes. The notion that we are in some sort of fiscal crisis due to tax cheats is laughable at best, and in no way justifies the massive growth being proposed for the DOR.

I am also very concerned that the governor's demonization of out-of-state businesses may lead to decreased investment in our state. Fewer investors mean fewer high-paying jobs coming to our state. Last time I checked, Montanans' number-one priority for the past two decades has been getting more good paying jobs in our state.

At a time when our state is experiencing record revenue surpluses, the Governor and the DOR should be looking at ways simplify the tax code and lower tax burdens on everyone. All I see from them is a move in the opposite direction. I will not sit by idly, and neither will some of my colleagues, as the governor tries to slip these detrimental proposals under the radar of taxpayers in Montana.

Bob Lake is a Republican legislator from Hamilton and chairman of the House Taxation Committee.