George Will this morning wrote a column arguing that Illinois is on the brink of losing 9000 businesses because it imposed an "Amazon Tax" recently.
See my response below the fold.
Dear Mr. Will,
I have a few bones to pick with your recent column. The first is your lack of basic knowledge of tax policy. Sales taxes are consumption taxes not business taxes. The reason Ohio does not get its states' residents' tax revenue is because the Ohio resident is using services in Pennsylvania and that locality when he/she is there. How does this basic fact escape your attention?
Another issue I have is with your sources, which are really pathetic The Illinois Policy Institute bills itself as "a nonpartisan research organization dedicated to supporting free market principles and liberty-based public policy." How am I supposed to believe that this organization is applying peer-reviewed research standards to justify me believing their reports regarding 1.2 million residents leaving Illinois to those specific states? The whole Midwest is losing citizens even states like Ohio, which despite four years of Ted Strickland, has mostly been governed by Republicans.
For years, Californians have heard that our state was losing businesses and jobs to Texas and Nevada from organizations just like the Illinois Policy Institute. In March of 2011, UCLA showed that all those claims were completely false.
I hate to tell you but I often read your columns with wonder in how you ever got employed in the first place. I know that you're a big figure in the conservative movement. I understand that you are respected for your intellect and your writing. But I just completely exposed your column as devoid of any facts, except that a business moved 5 miles. And I did so in about 30 minutes. Is that how long it takes you to write your columns?
Please forgive my spelling and grammar errors in the previous e-mail I sent it before spell-checking. Always a mistake.
Wishing you the best,
Noah