As part of the property tax relief bill this year, the General Assembly gave local governments some flexibility to shift taxes from property taxes to income taxes. Tracy Warner has a column which mentions that there is not yet much momentum to make that shift in Allen County. The problem is that the deadlines are close and the issues are complicated. Furthermore, you have to coordinate a decision among all of the taxing units in the county. The shift can be accomplished this year, and there are certainly reasons to make the shift, but it seems like it would be extremely difficult for our elected officials to obtain and process all of the information they need to make a decision on whether and how to implement the tax shift. For example, which shift option do you use – a) for all property owners; b) for homeowners only; or c) for homeowners and rental-housing owners? How much – the full 1% or something less?

And that’s just step one of the options – as I recall, there are two other potential income tax options for counties. I forget #2 off hand. And #3 involves a tax that would benefit public safety, but requires #1 and #2 to be implemented.

So, I don’t think the lack of momentum noted by Mr. Warner should be taken as a lack of interest; probably more of a cautiousness stemming from numerous decisions of consequence that have to be made with, as yet, limited information.

Gov. Daniels is moving in the opposite direction from the Indiana General Assembly with respect to government printing operations. About 8 years ago, the General Assembly decided to move from private printing to in-house printing and experienced a significant savings of taxpayer dollars. As a result, they were able to cut printing appropriations by about 2/3 and save the taxpayers something like $400,000 per year.

Gov. Daniels has decided to ignore the experience of the General Assembly and, will be sending taxpayer dollars to Pitney Bowes for government printing services. I suppose we can regard this move by Gov. Daniels as an admission of his weakness as a manager, conceding that he is incapable of doing what the General Assembly managed. Instead, however, I suspect we can regard this as further evidence that Gov. Daniels favors privatization as an idealogical article of faith. Contrary evidence, such as the experience of the General Assembly, are merely lies planted by Satan to test the faithful. Daniels is a True Believer and will not be tempted by sweet lies that allow government employees to keep their jobs and taxpayers to save their money. Tithing to our corporate masters is the only true path to purity.

The Indy Star has an article entitled Gov. Mitch Daniels weighs Indiana gasoline tax options. This is part of the ongoing series in which Democratic Speaker Pat Bauer scores political points off of Gov. Daniels by calling for the Governor to suspend the state’s gas sales tax on gas.

I tend to agree with the Governor that this is a bad idea. To me, that would amount to the State subsidizing oil company profits. And, in any event, it would just be a drop in the bucket. $0.06 out of an average cost of $3.20 per gallon amounts to a 1.8% saving. The sales tax on gas is $0.06 per dollar which would amount to a 6% savings. Meanwhile, the State will have to look elsewhere to replace the lost tax revenue.

Still, it’s probably effective politics by Bauer. Folks will probably just perceive that gas prices are hurting them badly, and have a notion that Gov. Daniels could do something to help but won’t. This will add to the general narrative that Gov. Daniels is mainly a servant of the wealthy in our society and does not have a great deal of interest in the working class citizens of Indiana. And Bauer does have a point in that, the way the sales tax is structured — calculated based on the price of the gas; the State gains more revenue as gas prices increase.

Update My mistake. I seem to make the same mistake every time this comes up. The sales tax on gas is distinct from the excise tax. The excise tax (back in 2006, anyway) was 18 cents per gallon for the state and 18.4 cents per gallon for the federal government. The sales tax is just $0.06 per dollar. I wonder if it would make sense to cap the sales tax to a maximum of $0.12 or $0.18 per gallon or something.

Benjamin Lanka, writing for the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, has an article entitled $40 million windfall looms in ’09. Apparently way back in 1974, Fort Wayne leased its electric utility to Indiana & Michigan Electric Company. The city set aside $270,000 per year from the lease revenue, and put it into a trust. In 2009, the trust matures and there will be about $40 million in unrestricted funds available to the city. Let the games begin.

The Lafayette Journal & Courier is reporting that Monticello’s mayor Bob Fox, indicted for allegedly filing about $2,400 worth of false travel reimbursement claims over 3 years, has won the Democratic primary against challenger Rennatta Berkshire — the person who reported the allegedly false claims to the police. Fox won with a landslide 63% of the vote — though I should report that this only amounts to 237 votes in a primary where only 372 votes were cast. He will face Republican challenger Jason Thompson and will probably have tough odds in the general election given the indictment and the fact that 696 votes were cast in the Republican mayoral primary.