States give away tens of billions of dollars ever year in tax breaks…but we don’t have any idea how much Alabama gives because no one has put that information together. In order to make smart decisions about which tax breaks are sound and which aren’t, we need that information.
Alabama and Georgia are two of the nine states in the country that don’t provide this information. In order to be smart about our tax policy, we need to have that data.
The full CBPP study, “Promoting State Budget Accountability Through Tax
Expenditure Reporting,” is available online at
http://www.cbpp.org/files/4-9-09sfp.pdf
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The World Around You: How Much Does Alabama Give in Tax Breaks? We Don’t Know: States give away tens of billions.. http://tinyurl.com/cvadupGD Star Rating
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Might be something us citizens could assemble by reviewing the Alabama Code, local constitutional amendments and department (ABC board, Revenue Dept, etc) rulings.
Anyone else interested? Could be fun or a cure for insomnia
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Walt,
I LOVE that idea. Any ideas about how we could divide it up?
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I’m thinking a wiki may be in order.
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I just had another thought…what about getting a legislator to make a request to the Legislative Fiscal Office?
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Tokay, from the Legislative fiscal office, you can get the Legislator’s Guide to Taxes for a start. From state finance department, Budget info. Lots of info out there, its all just disjointed and probably only grokked by the finance department bureaucrats.
Coordination? Email with everybody getting a CC of mails to start?
But first lets decide what we’re doing. Are we gathering a list of current taxes and what exemptions exist, or something else?
A list of what taxes exist, their rates, who collects with the various exemptions/exceptions (and any stated reason) all laid out is my idea
have fun
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Sounds good Walt…I decided to start a Wiki, rather than try and manage this through e-mail.
http://alatax.wikidot.com/
Any and all suggestions or data can be posted there and we will start pulling this together. I’ve also sent an email to one of the analysts at CBPP who did the original study for his thoughts and ideas.
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