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Location: Nashville, Tennessee, United States

6/12/2002

Gill Nails It
Talk radio host Steve Gill has published an excellent essay, States with income tax feeling pain, looking at a report by the National Conference of State Legislatures, two other associations representing state policymakers, and the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, which finds that states with income taxes are suffering big deficits. The report got little attention from the mainstream press. Why? "The report cuts against the mainstream media's pitch that an income tax is more reliable than sales taxes. They don't want you to get the truth, since it might derail the income tax push," notes Gill.

According to the survey, individual income tax payments to states fell 21 percent in April and for the first four months of 2002, state income tax collections were down 14 percent from the same period last year. The astute will note that sales tax revenue in Tennessee is up slightly this fiscal year. An income tax, far from solving Tennessee's budget crisis, would make it worse.