by James A. Bacon
It is an axiom of economics that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Like Isaac Newton’s laws of physics, the adage is universally true… most of the time. Just as Newtonian physics breaks down at the quantum level, however, the free-lunch maxim breaks down in the realm of taxes. Some taxes depress economic activity so much that replacing them with less harmful taxes stimulates economic growth and job creation while remaining revenue-neutral.
Finding the right combination of taxes is the animating force behind the four-year effort of the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy (TJI) to restructure Virginia’s tax code. Working with Chmura Economics & Analytics, President Michael Thompson introduced the idea in 2012 and has been refining the approach ever since. The Institute has just published an update.
In the past year, Thompson has been talking to groups representing business, municipal government and tax reform to identify a restructured tax system for Virginia that would be not only economically beneficial but politically palatable. The approach that emerged from the years-long process would eliminate three counterproductive business taxes — the Business Professional and Occupational License tax, the Machine & Tools tax, and the Merchants Capital tax — and replace lost revenue by expanding the sales tax to encompass currently exempt services. The health care sector would remain exempt.
Of the 23 scenarios examined, the one that produced the most positive economic benefits was “Scenario 5,” which included the reforms noted above plus eliminating the state’s bottom two personal income tax brackets (up to $5,000) and shaving the other two brackets by 9.25%. According to Chmura, the results would be:
- 79,000 increase in private employment
- $287 million increase in investment
- $2.85 billion increase in real disposable income
- $8.4 billion increase in state GDP
One important caveat: Thompson describes the economic model as a “dynamic tax/spending” model. If I correctly understand the meaning of that phrase, the model achieves revenue neutrality by including in its forecast revenues generated by the economic growth. While I prefer dynamic analysis to static analysis (basing tax policy on the assumption that changes in tax policy have no effect on real-world economic behavior), the approach does entail an extra layer of assumptions, which in turn introduces an added element of uncertainty to the analysis.
If Governor Terry McAuliffe wants to put Virginians back to work, tax policy may be the biggest lever he has at his disposal. He needs to give the idea serious consideration.
