Darden seeking one-of-a-kind tax break from Legislature - Orlando Sentinel
I'm a registered Republican with libertarian/tea party leanings, and a free-market fanatic.
I don't like taxes.
I don't like corporate welfare.
I don't like like fraud.
The legislature is looking at a bill that would let certain businesses keep a portion of the sales taxes they collect from their customers. Only Darden could qualify as the bill is written and could keep as much as $7.5 million of the money it adds to our bills as sales "taxes". If they don't have to turn it over to the state they shouldn't have to collect it from us. That is fraud, abetted by the Legislature.
But not only do we still have to pay the full sales tax amount, we have to make up for the reduced tax collections by the state. That's welfare of the corporate variety.
It would be better for the state to simply write Darden a check for $7,500,000 and announce what other welfare programs it was reducing by a like amount. That would at least eliminate the fraud of hiding the gift from the taxpayers in a bill that doesn't even name the beneficiary.
