Spaceport Snake Oil Salesmen: On the Prowl Again

We at the Rio Grande Foundation have written a good deal about the proposed New Mexico Spaceport. Now, the new director of the Spaceport, Steve Landeene, is making the pitch for “tax hikes for billionaires” to justifiably-skeptical voters in Sierra County.
Landeene argued before the Sierra County Commission that the 1/4-cent gross receipts sales tax hike [...]

New Mexico Left-Wing Coalition Pushes “Video Game Tax”

For some, taxes and government regulations are the first and favored tool for moral betterment. This reflex is made abundantly clear by the Rio Grande Chapter of the Sierra Club here in New Mexico and a coalition called “Leave No Child Inside” which is pushing a 1 percent tax on TVs, video games and video [...]

Bernalillo: Let us tax more, but we won’t use the power…yet.

Bernalillo County will be lobbying the Legislature during the 2008 session for the ability to raise property taxes on County residents. Leaving aside whether it is proper for our elected representatives to use our tax money to further increase our taxes, this request, if fulfilled, will inevitably result in higher taxes, no matter what the [...]

Gas Taxes and Gas Prices

When one person says something it is can often be dismissed as a simple statement of their opinion. When two people make the exact same statement and they happen to both be state legislators who are intimately involved in setting transportation policies in New Mexico, it becomes a talking point.
This became apparent recently as I [...]

The Case for Tax and Spending Limits in New Mexico

Michael New, a professor from the University of Alabama and an expert on tax and spending limits testified with me before the Legislative Finance Committee recently. An article by Dr. New recently appeared in the Las Cruces Sun-News making the case for Constitutional limits on taxes and spending in New Mexico.

Tax Foundation Releases Business Tax Friendliness Index

According to the Tax Foundation’s exhaustive analysis of business taxes nationwide, New Mexico, the state ranks in the middle of the pack (23rd overall). There is a lot of great information and analysis in the paper, but the following quote summarizes the study’s findings with regard to New Mexico:
New Mexico has improved several aspects of [...]

Impact Fees and Housing Affordability

Impact fees… to advocates they are a means of “generating revenue for funding or recouping the costs of capital improvements or facility expansions necessitated by and attributable to the new development .” To detractors, they are just another way for government to reach into taxpayers’ pockets. From the Foundation’s perspective, it would be nice if [...]

Tax Burdens in New Mexico

Recently, the Rio Grande Foundation released its study of the “local” tax burdens (gross receipts and property) of New Mexico’s 10-largest cities. Carlsbad and Hobbs were found to have the lowest burdens as a percentage of income while Albuquerque and Las Cruces residents faced the heaviest burdens.
To calculate your own gross receipts and property tax [...]

Outdated subsidy? We’ll find a new purpose for that…

An article in the Albuquerque Journal’s Business Outlook section yesterday (subscription required) focused on the Universal Service Fund and the fact that Qwest, which has major operations in New Mexico, has called the Fund “outdated.” In case you don’t know, the Universal Service Fund is one of those line items on your phone bill that [...]

Another Teachable Moment on Tax Policy

I’m all for tax cuts, but does it really make sense for New Mexico to target boxing, wrestling, and martial arts events for gross receipts tax elimination? If New Mexico is going to continue with this fiction of a broad and fair tax policy as the gross receipts tax is supposed to be, then we [...]

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