Maria E. Roberts

In the last special session, the Florida legislature slashed budgets for schools and other critical services because of Florida's revenue shortfall.  But, as William March points out in the Tampa Tribune, legislators could have prevented these harmful actions if they had fixed a couple of corporate tax loopholes.

Even in the worst depression years, farm families never ate their seed corn because it represented their future.  Butchering school budgets amounts to eating our seed corn – it shortchanges the future of our state and our people.  They love the loopholes that let them do this.

Example: in a real estate transaction, the seller must pay documentary stamp tax to the state.  But corporations that sell high value properties do not have to pay the documentary stamp tax even thought it is supposed to apply to all Florida real estate sales. 

Moreover Florida corporations can export profits to other states to avoid Florida corporate income tax.  They can transfer some of their taxable income to sister corporations in states with more lenient tax laws than ours.  The above two loopholes cost Florida about $500 million annually, about what was cut from education in the last special session.

We could be levying taxes on sales through the internet, as we do for sales at retail outlets throughout the state.  If we did, it would not only increase sales tax revenue, it might also create more business for Florida retailers.  And we could eliminate many other loopholes in the current sales tax to make it more equitable.

Ethically challenged Florida House Speaker Ray Sansom said revenue increases should be considered in the regular session only, because that's where citizens can have more input.  But it's OK for them to chop the life out of our seed corn, our education system, in special session without citizen input.