Guest Opinion

Oregon, with nation’s worst tax structure, needs help

By Scott Bruun

, Dec 27, 2007, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (2 Reader comments)

(Recently we held) the first meeting of the Revenue Restructuring Task Force, a new entity charged with studying our state’s current tax system, analyzing strengths and weaknesses and submitting recommended policy changes to the 2009 Legislature.

The task force is the result of HB 2530, a bill which I sponsored because I believe Oregon has the worst tax structure in the nation. And I am increasingly convinced that if we do not have the courage to radically change our tax structure soon, Oregon will forever be consigned to economic mediocrity.

Our tax structure is crippling for the following reasons: 1) it punishes work, savings and investment at some of the nation’s highest rates, therefore discouraging these endeavors; 2) it provides little in support or encouragement to families with children – Oregon’s most valuable long-term asset; and 3) its volatility and unpredictability places state government in a permanent, structural budget crisis.

First, income tax rates on our work, our jobs, are among the highest in the nation; and the Oregon tax rate on investment gains is the highest in the nation. If you believe taxes affect behavior, and that whatever activity we tax we get less of, then it’s easy to conclude that Oregon’s tax structure stifles incentives for productive work and investment.

Our tax structure is also family-unfriendly. For an average working family with kids, the only “benefit” of the state tax code is a paltry $159-per-child tax credit. Yet don’t we all agree that children are our state’s most important asset? From an economic perspective, this sentiment is absolutely true. Children are the ones who will pay all future taxes and provide all the future economic underpinning that provide the rest of us with security as we age. And parents are the ones who make the financial sacrifices now to raise these children – sacrifices largely ignored by the state.

1 | 2 Next Page >>

Facebook	Digg	Del.icio.us
Newsvine	Stumbleupon	Reddit