CTNJ/Opinion: Drastic times – let towns have their own sales taxes

Contributing op-ed columnist Terry Cowgill lives in Lakeville, blogs at ctdevilsadvocate.com and is managing editor of The Berkshire Edge in Great Barrington, Mass.

In an effort to fill a projected yawning gap in the upcoming biennial budget, lawmakers in Hartford continue to consider a wide variety of revenue enhancement options. In my last column, we explored the proposed plastic-bag tax.

But a proposal to allow the state’s 169 municipalities to impose their owns sales taxes is an idea worth pursuing. That’s because it would not mandate any new taxes but would instead pass the buck and empower towns to piggyback on the state’s 6.35-percent sales tax. And if implemented the right way, it would also allow the legislators a measure of plausible deniability (e.g. “We didn’t pass new taxes; your town did”).

The idea gained currency in January when the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities issued a sweeping report recommending, among other things, lowering the state sales tax and decreasing the number of exemptions, but allowing regions and municipalities to add a sales tax of their own of no more than one percentage point.

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