With most state legislatures kicking off their 2015 sessions this month, many lawmakers have once again set their sights on taxpayers’ wallets. Far too often, lawmakers seek tax increases to make up for their reckless spending habits. Other times, these proposals amount to nothing more than corporate welfare. In other words, they’re lawmakers’ attempts to pick winners and losers in the business community – an increasingly problematic trend. A brand new bill in the South Carolina Senate, S277, is the latest example.
Introduced just days ago, the bill targets cell phone customers in South Carolina (4.5 million taxpayers and counting) for a higher tax on their monthly bills. The purpose? To provide larger government handouts to landline companies who have seen their customer base shrink rapidly in recent years due to increased cell phone usage.
Palmetto State consumers should vehemently oppose bills like S277, which distort the free market and pick the pockets of hard working taxpayers. I’ve recently written about the fact that Americans pay, on average, a whopping 17 percent in taxes on their monthly cell phone bill. State, local, and federal taxes are built into our monthly bills, and we often don’t even realize it.
For a more detailed take on the bill, I recommend reading Steve Forbes’ recent piece in The Greenville News. In his words, “South Carolina voters who share this belief should tell their representatives in the Legislature that they oppose this unnecessary and unwise new tax hit, and expect them to do the same.”
Here at the National Taxpayers Union, we couldn’t agree more.