No Income Tax=Friendly For Small Biz
This letter to the editor in today's issue of the pro-income tax Memphis Commercial Appeal alerted me to this story I had missed from the Aug. 3 edition of that same paper. The headline: Tenn. ranks No. 7 in kindness-to-business. The gist of it: Tennessee ranks highly in part because it doesn't have an income tax.

Relevant excerpt: Tennessee has surpassed Mississippi in a list of states ranked according to how well they treat small business, as judged by the Small Business Survival Committee. In the seventh annual Small Business Survival Index, released in July, Tennessee was ranked No. 7, out of the 50 states and the District of Columbia, according to 20 criteria designed to show how much of a burden government places on small businesses. Mississippi was No. 9, same as in 2001. Tennessee was No. 10 in 2001.

Tennessee's rejection of a state income tax worked in its favor on this list.

"Tennessee's recent budget session was a mixed bag," the report states. "The good news was that another effort to impose a general personal income tax in the state was defeated. Income taxes are, by far, the most destructive levies imposed by government. However, the state sales tax was increased from 6 percent to 7 percent."

Small business is, of course, vital to the economic well-being of Tennessee and its people. Gubernatorial candidate Van Hilleary has called for the rollback of the one-cent sales tax increase, and also firmly rejects an income tax. His opponent, former Nashville Mayor Phil Bredesen, calls reducing the sales tax an "irresponsible" idea even though a few months ago he was claiming to be able to "manage" the state without a tax increase.