Opponents Speak Out About Delivery Tax
by Christine Stuart | April 15, 2008 4:17 PM
Posted to State Capitol
Looking out over the runways at Bradley International Airport Tuesday morning, industry officials and Senator John Kissel, R-Enfield, voiced their opposition to the Democrat-controlled Finance Committee’s proposed 6 percent sales tax on deliveries.
Kissel called the proposed tax “ill-conceived” and “wrongheaded” but said its goal of raising $60 million to fully fund state grants to cities and towns for property they’re unable to tax was “laudable.”
Kissel who represents the region surrounding the airport said his community which houses several prisons would benefit from an increase in the state grant known as PILOT, however, the new delivery tax is not the way to do it.
The proponents of the delivery sales tax called for legislators to find a permanent funding mechanism for cities and towns that can’t collect property taxes from state-owned properties, colleges, and hospitals. The state supplements a portion of the property taxes, but not all of them.
On Monday the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities called for this to be done either through the delivery sales tax or find another way, such as the $50 million in additional money available this year from the sale of abandoned property. “It would take only an additional $10 million in funding to provide the $60 million in aid needed to fully fund the PILOT program,” the CCM press release stated.
Kissel warned that it’s critically important the legislature does not impact businesses by creating new taxes.
“The way the bill was drafted it could have a cascading effect,” Kissel said. He said a manufacturer could tax a wholesaler for a delivery, then the wholesaler could tax the distributor for delivery, and the distributor could tax the retailer for delivery, and the retailer could pass it along to the consumer in the price of an item.
Gerard Barrieau, who owns a packing and shipping store called PakMail, said every day he deals with customers shipping packages to relatives. He said it’s likely the tax would be passed along to them.
Michael Gualtieri President of ProCourier said the increase in gas prices has already put some smaller businesses out of business and this new tax would have the same effect.
Bob DeCaprio, executive director of the Messenger Courier Association of the Americas in Washington D.C., said he was appalled a bill like this would get as far as it did. He said what’s worse is “we don’t know what type of deliveries it will effect and whose going to collect it.”
The tax came up as a solution to fund the PILOT program to help local cities and towns. Urban mayors had asked the state to allow it to charge 1 percent more in sales tax in their respective geographic areas. Click here and here for more background on the tax proposal, which many Capitol insiders believe is DOA.
Comments (4)
Posted by: Steven G. Erickson | April 16, 2008 7:43 AM
I reported felony behavior of Connecticut State Police Officers to Kissel, proposing Civilian Oversight of Police as legislation.
I was then put on the Connecticut State Police "Secret Enemies List", similar to the going after of journalist, Ken Krayeske, who also ended up on the secret State Police enemies list.
I believe Kissel is dirty. Report fraud, felonies, and lapses in official ethics and he'll help cover it up.
Kissel is a posterchild for why lawyers should not be elected. There loyalties and conscience lie elsewhere.
http://thesrv.blogspot.com/2006/12/letter-complaining-to-ct-atty-gen.html
Posted by: Gary Doyens | April 16, 2008 8:13 AM
This was a bad, poorly conceived tax sold as a tax on a few big businesses. In reality, it would have hit anybody who ships anything other than a letter through the post office. Are you sending your used kids' clothing to your sister's kids in Illinois? You'd pay more. Christmas presents? You'd pay more.
It's time to do a real story on PILOT - and the mayors who constantly whine about the reimbursement, and then do everything in their power to build more PILOT projects. Some years ago, former DeStefano spokesperson Derek Slap and I were talking about this subject in relation to the excessive and luxurious spending on school construction - and he admitted "we do it because of PILOT." The state pays for most of the schools, and we get a higher PILOT. It'd be interesting to see if PILOT increases offset the increased city cost of borrowing for those schools.
There should be an audit of PILOT projects too - it wouldn't be a surprise to see excessive values put on these PILOT projects. Any owner outside the city, of a PILOT project, has little incentive to spend time and money challenging the valuation of their property when they don't have to make a payment directly tied to it.
Posted by: Eastshoreguy | April 16, 2008 6:35 PM
Gary, Gary, Gary.
Does anything positive ever come out of your mouth?
I for one would rather see more of my hard earned tax dollars return from Hartford and back into the city I live.
I may not agree with all the decisions made by the mayor or my alderperson and I dont like the taxes that are collected from me.
But it seems like this compromise legislation is aimed at fully funding PILOT to the level which the state origin ally agreed - and the bll does so without reducing state revenues.
I don't see what your complaint really is other than you hate the Mayor.
Are you really against more money returning to New haven?
Posted by: Gary Doyens | April 18, 2008 8:04 AM
I don't do happy talk. There are plenty of people in the Happy Talk Choir already who are quite content to burst forth in song while repeating the refrain of blaming the state, Yale, or others for the financial mess in which New Haven annually finds itself. I prefer reality check. Most of the time, it's not pretty.