Tax Foundation

TRENTON - New Jersey lawmakers will vote Thursday on adopting a corporate tax break that is intended to reward multistate businesses that hire and expand in the state but that would cost millions of dollars in lost revenue. The measure is known as the single-sales factor, under which the amount of profit subject to New Jersey taxes is based only on a company's sales. Moving to that system benefits corporations that sell to a national market but have numerous employees and property in New Jersey.

  A faint voice can be heard from the left side of statehouses across the land. "Tax the rich," it cries. New Jersey Republican Gov. Christie recoils at those words. More taxes in a state that has the highest local tax burden in the United States - 12.2 percent of income, according to the nonpartisan Tax Foundation? Never, Christie has vowed. Try to increase the so-called millionaire's tax, he warned, and all those business owners who hire people will flee to more tax-friendly environs.

When it comes to the real estate tax, opinion is deeply divided: Half of property owners hate it, and the other half really, really hate it. Dissatisfaction appears to be off the charts in North Dakota. In June, in what is believed to be a first, voters will decide whether to scrap the unpopular levy. "We consider North Dakota to be Lexington and Concord," said Charlene Nelson, a home-schooling mother who is a referendum organizer. Although nothing of that magnitude is unfolding in Pennsylvania, the legislature once again is considering bills to eliminate the property tax, oft-criticized for being unfair, antiquated, and baffling.

As election time draws nearer, Gov. Ed Rendell is issuing a flurry of press releases to convince voters that his administration has improved Pennsylvania's competitiveness and economic growth. One report that Gov. Rendell claims shows "that Pennsylvania's business climate is one of the best and most business-friendly" in our region is the "State Business Tax Climate Index" by the Washington, D.C.-based Tax Foundation. However, a closer look at Gov. Rendell's record reveals that the bulk of the positive changes to Pennsylvania's business taxes pre-date his administration.

The Tax Foundation issued its annual ranking of states by business-tax climate Thursday. The Washington-based research group placed Pennsylvania at No. 26 on the 2011 version of its index - not too hot, nor too cold. Oddly, that prompted Gov. Rendell to hold a news conference in Harrisburg to crow about the state's improving and competitive tax climate. The governor cited previous Tax Foundation data that show the state's ranking improving since it was No. 30 in fiscal 2007.

Gov. Corzine and his Republican rival, Christopher J. Christie, don't seem to agree on much as the gubernatorial race lurches through its inevitably ugly last days. But they both support property-tax rebates. It's probably no coincidence that the Tax Foundation just "awarded" New Jersey yet another No. 1 ranking on its list of the nation's most burdensome property levies. No matter how many such prizes the state accumulates, its leaders remain fiercely loyal to policies that have failed to solve the problem.

New Jersey moves to the top of America's sales-tax heap with the addition of a penny on its sales tax. It joins Mississippi, Rhode Island and Tennessee with a 7 percent rate, according to data compiled by the Sales Tax Institute. That's certainly something people will grumble about in the state with the highest property tax per capita. The Legislature yesterday agreed with Gov. Corzine to raise the tax, but details were still being hammered out. Even with the extra penny, New Jersey's overall tax burden is not as imposing as many think.

It was said again and again at the Republican National Convention last week: President Clinton pushed through the largest tax increase in history. Well, not really. Not when inflation is accounted for. With that adjustment, the largest U.S. tax increase since World War II came in 1982 under President Ronald Reagan. It was written principally by Bob Dole, who then chaired the Senate Finance Committee. A dollar was worth more in 1993 than it is today. Using 1993 dollars as a measure, the 1982 tax increase cost $260 billion over five years.

More businesses and individuals will file for bankruptcy this year than ever before, largely because of a sharp increase in personal debt since the mid-1980s, a research group said yesterday. The American Bankruptcy Institute, a Washington research organization, said that more than 880,000 American businesses and individuals had already filed for bankruptcy this year, more than in all of 1990. The group projected that nearly one million bankruptcy cases would be filed before year's end, including more than 900,000 individual cases.

What is Spinsanity? It's a Web site whose proprietors scrutinize statements by our political leaders, candidates, journalists, and pundits for honesty, fairness, and rhetorical soundness. Each Thursday on the Commentary Page, the good folks at Spinsanity will restore sanity to the spin of statements from both the right and the left. Today's subjects: bogus political stats. Misleading 'misery index' Miserable at the sight of more bogus political statistics? You're not the only one. On Monday, Sen. John Kerry's presidential campaign released a "middle-class misery index," claiming that it "worsened 13 points in the last three years - the largest three-year fall on record and the worst record of any president ever.