A better local business tax : BVT

This tax is distinctly different from the VATs already imposed by the federal government in the form of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) as well as similar VATs imposed by several provinces, such as the Quebec Sales Tax (QST), and the Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) used in Ontario and the Atlantic provinces. [...] The base of the BVT may be calculated by the subtraction method as sales minus the purchase of inputs, including capital purchases (less depreciation allowances), from other businesses.7 If all capital purchases were deductible, the base would be equivalent to the tax base of a conventional VAT like the HST.8 However, since the BVT taxes profits as well as wages, it is a tax on income and not, lik [...] Although the design and administration of a BVT are not further discussed here, many of the relevant issues are considered in the following discussion of the emergence of VAT-type local business taxes akin to the BVT in recent years. [...] Since the benefit argument for the SBT was never prominent in Michigan, as the base of the SBT became more eroded – partly to offset the effects of the declining automotive sector – the tax came to be both excessively complex and unpopular. [...] Like the former Michigan Single Business Tax, the base of the BET is determined as the sum of the apportioned state share of the firm’s national expenditures on wages and salaries, interest, and dividends, and hence is origin- based.