Tax breaks should lighten the load for the poor instead of going solely to the interest groups with the most clout in Montgomery. We excuse so many from paying their fair share that we have to raise taxes on the rest of us to make up the difference. The sales tax is everybody's favorite revenue device. Sales tax can be levied locally, without a constitutional amendment or a vote of the people. It also is the tax that falls hardest on the poor.
Sales tax is seven times harder on the poor than on the wealthy.
A much larger slice of the income of the poor goes to food, clothing and other necessities. And there are no breaks on food or over the counter medicine for the poor or elderly. Sales tax is the most regressive tax, and yet in Alabama we raise four times the revenue through sales tax than through property tax. Not only is it unfair to rely so heavily on a regressive sales tax, it is foolhardy in light of the snowballing e-commerce. Internet merchandising, which at this time returns no tax revenue, looms especially large to a state that depends heavily on sales tax revenue.