With this week’s launch of its website taxpolicyct.org, the Tax Policy Collaborative says it intends to be a voice in the never-ending debate over tax policy in Connecticut.
A project of the group 1,000 Friends of Connecticut, “Our primary focus is to significantly reduce the share of total state and local revenue collected from property taxes, and to do so in a way that advances economic growth and minimizes adverse land-use decisions,” explained William J. Cibes Jr., who co-chairs the Tax Policy Collaborative.
Cibes is best known as head of the state’s Office of Policy & Management under Gov. Lowell P. Weicker Jr. and later chancellor of the Connecticut State University system. During the state’s 1991-92 fiscal crisis it was budget director Cibes who helped Weicker arrive at the decision to impose the state income tax the Greenwich Republican had earlier campaigned against.
The mission of the Tax Policy Collaborative is to “rebalance” the state’s tax structure so that property taxes make up a lower proportion of total state and local tax revenue than its current 42 percent, according to the group.
The group says its aim is to make Connecticut’s tax structure “simpler, fairer and more progressive” in order to “achieve economic equity and racial justice through ‘fair-share’ affordable housing policies.” It also aims to “restructure” education funding to close the achievement gap; and above all to close the state’s yawning income gap.
The current system, according to a white paper prepared by 1,000 Friends in 2015, “undermines economic growth, is regressive, unfair and economically inefficient.”
To compensate for reducing the share that property taxes comprise of municipal budgets, the groups recommends:
• Increasing Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) programs for state property, private colleges and non-profit hospitals, as well as for manufacturing machinery and equipment.
• Increasing state dollars to lower-income municipalities to reduce what it calls the “need-capacity gap” including more state dollars to public education.
• To pay for all this, 1,000 Friends of Connecticut wants to “provide another source of revenue to municipalities, such as a share of the statewide income tax, sales tax or a new statewide property tax,” according to its white paper.
“Our intention is to provide facts and discuss the ramifications, good and bad, of decisions being considered at the Capitol throughout the budget process and beyond,” said Susan Merrow, who with Cibes co-chairs the Tax Policy Collaborative. “This year has been described as a fiscal crossroads for Connecticut, and we’re hoping to help Connecticut steer in a better direction.”
Contact Michael C. Bingham at mbingham@newhavenbiz.com
