They Write Letters

Sometime lawyer and noted tax reformer Tom Tew writes the Herald with some genuinely helpful ideas about our tax system:

The Florida Constitution prohibits a state income tax on the historical belief that the lack of a state income tax would encourage new residents to move to our state.

Unfortunately, our sales- and real-estate tax structure is undermining this objective. The media report almost daily that valuable members of society cannot make ends meet and are considering leaving the state. These are the people we desperately need to build a solid place to live -- teachers, firefighters and police, etc.

Also, senior citizens are being squeezed out. Their destinations are other southern states. Many of these seniors have paid down or paid off their mortgages, but cannot carry the taxes.

In light of this reality, the following should be seriously considered:

• Amend the state Constitution to permit a graduated income tax. Let those who earn above a certain amount pay a fair share of our state budget. In the year of payment, an individual state taxpayer receives a deduction on federal income taxes.

• Reduce sales taxes based on revenue projections from the new state income tax. It's time to quit banking on tourists carrying the load. All exemptions should be eliminated other than for food and medicine. Yes, bond issues would have to be restructured, and Wall Street would be more than pleased to do so.

• Slash real-estate taxes. Funding for government bodies, including local school boards, would come from reduced real-estate taxes and a state revenue sharing of the new income-tax revenue. This approach would put an end to the current circus that sets long-time homeowners against new homeowners and residential owners against commercial interests. The nightmare of defining portability also would be avoided.

Hopefully, a statesman or stateswoman will emerge to put this issue on the table for serious debate. In reality, it likely would be someone facing term limits.

Our current tax system does not work and raises doubts about our state's future. Economists long have advised that sales taxes are regressive and adversely affect the poor. Our recent experiment with real-estate tax reform speaks for itself.

THOMAS TEW, Miami

What is it with Tew Cardenas lawyers and the Miami Herald letters page? First Joe DeMaria suggests that all traffic be eliminated so he can ride his Mercedes to Pinecrest in peace, and now Tom actually has sane advice on curing our tax woes.

We know Big Al is too busy helping Romney win silver medals, so who from that firm will write in next to the Herald?

Come on, Suzanne Besu! Regale us with inside dirt on the sordid goings-on of the National Republican Congressional Committee's Business Advisory Council -- I hear those folks really know how to party.