States are raking in tax receipts, but given their constant moaning about needing to tax Internet sales and access, as well as voice-over-Internet protocol telephone service, who would know?
Alaska, for instance, has seen its tax revenues soar nearly 40% from July of last year to March of this year. No other state has had such a jump, but many are nevertheless getting fatter. California and Arizona each had tax receipts grow about 17% during that period. In Virginia, the increase has been almost 15%, while Florida’s tax coffers have grown 13%.
For the first quarter this year, the national average increase for state tax revenues is 11.7% over the first quarter of 2004. The Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government says that is the strongest first three months of a year since 1991.
Meanwhile, states are crying poverty and eyeing technology for a bigger payday.
“Given the state’s financial situation, we are going to be aggressively collecting every dollar that’s owed,” Tom Dresslar, spokesman for the California attorney general’s office said after a California appellate court ruled last month that Borders Group must pay state sales tax for books, music and other goods sold online to California residents.
Ron Kirk, former Dallas Mayor and a member of the congressionally appointed Advisory Commission on Electronic Commerce, expressed the greed that drives so many other elected officials to reach into someone else’s pocket rather than make hard decisions.
“We understand that some people want to keep the Internet free, but we also have an obligation to provide schools, roads, police and other government services,” he said. “We need a tax structure that allows cities and states to do that.”
But as Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, pointed out two years ago that “States have never proven they’ve been injured by their inability to discriminate against online sellers.”