The infrastructure, employees, etc. already exist to handle the change and, secondly, the Vermont Department of Taxation is already skilled in keeping private financial data private -- something this year's new system of mailing town clerks property tax 'adjustments' for individual taxpayers does not do.
The governor's reaction is not based on substance. It is a knee-jerk reaction raising the usual hue and cry about raising taxes. Blathering on with his same old 'tax and spend liberals' and 'tax and spend Democrats,' he's missing the point.
The point is that the current system is not working. The point is that the current system, despite several attempts to 'fix' it, is a complicated morass of calculations, estimations and ever-adjusted moving targets.
In short, it's a train wreck, the final culmination of which was this year's disastrous system whereby the amount of taxpayers' 'adjustments' (aka prebates) are available to the public. Douglas completely misses the point that the current system is already consistently raising taxes, so much so that Vermont's property tax system is already discouraging business and people from coming to Vermont.
And the governor's protestations notwithstanding, who says switching to paying education taxes via income tax forms will raise taxes? Where's the proof? Where's the numerical bottom line? Voters may even be more mindful of their purse strings when education taxes are levied via deductions from their weekly paychecks rather than once a year through a complicated system where your 'real' tax bill is $5,000, but your payable (post prebate/adjustment) bill is $3,000.
It is pure political pandering to insist that our very expensive and burdensome education tax be segregated from the 'herd' so that our governor can insist Vermont's income tax rate did not go up on his watch.
It is political pandering and a refusal to accept the reality of our disastrous system and a refusal to take an open-minded look at possible solutions.
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