HAWVER: The new phrase 'tax expenditures'
TOPEKA -- It's just getting started at the Statehouse as the state faces its most-harrowing budget crisis in recent memory, but some insiders -- you'll figure out whom pretty quickly -- have coined a new phrase: tax expenditure.
Tax expenditure; it sounds a little different than "tax cut" or "tax exemption," and it sounds different for a reason.
Lawmakers and some policymakers who favor increasing state revenues and closing some exemptions to raise more money for the state like the term.
The concept is relatively simple.
Every tax cut, those wished for by groups and those already in effect, are very frankly expenditures by the state. It's giving away money that, without the exemption, the state would receive. It amounts to an expenditure, doesn't it?
Exempting, say, churches and charitable organizations from sales tax on things they buy and sell sounds like a reasonable idea, and Kansas exempts those outfits from sales tax. That's an easy vote if you are a member of the Legislature.
But, let's say instead of an exemption, the state had those churches and charities pay sales tax on things they buy and collect sales tax on things they sell -- just like the corner grocery store.
Now, consider this "tax expenditure" business. Instead of not having them collect taxes and pay taxes, let's say the state just appropriates money to the churches and charities.
It works out the same, dollar-wise, but it is a whole different deal when it comes to an appropriations bill that includes a line item to send thousands of dollars to every church in the state or every charitable organization.
Sending taxpayer money to churches and charities is something that we just don't do. It just doesn't feel right, does it?
Well, that's what a tax exemption does, essentially. It's simpler, and the nice thing about it is because it is a tax exemption, it is private.
Notice your name is never in the newspaper showing how much money you made and how much taxes you paid? It's confidentiality we all enjoy.
So, if you put an exemption in the tax system, it's a lot more confidential than making an appropriation to the Nazarenes or the Baptists or the Catholics or the Girl Scouts or the local animal shelter.
As Carter played, Frisell reverted to the role of sideman. Indeed, there were times, as he nodded and smiled in response to the nuances of Carter's improvisation, when he strongly resembled a middle-aged jazz fan enjoying every beat of a Ron Carter solo.
Along with numbers by Hall and Frisell, there are blues and standards (including Hall's major-minor key arrangement of "My Funny Valentine," first recorded as a duet with Bill Evans) and a dramatic rendering of Bob Dylan's "Masters of War." 