By Howard Fischer, | Capitol Media Services via The Daily Courier
State lawmakers have taken the first steps toward potentially eliminating exemptions from sales taxes that now cost the state more than $12 billion a year.
On paper, SB 1144 does not cut any one of the hundreds of tax breaks that have been shepherded through the legislature, many decades ago, often at the behest of special interest lobbyists. Instead it simply requires that each of these exemptions be regularly reviewed to see which still make sense.
“If you don’t look at these things in the first place, you can’t get rid of the bad stuff in the tax code,’’ said Sen. Steve Farley, D-Tucson, who crafted the legislation approved unanimously by the Senate Finance Committee.
