JoeChalupa
03-14-2005, 11:08 AM
Biggest Donors Get Biggest Tax Breaks (http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/front/3082519)
A proposed $11 billion tax bill before the Texas House would create a new sales tax on bottled water, but the excise tax on beer, wine and liquor escapes any increase -- as it has since 1984.
A search of the Texas Ethics Commission database turns up no campaign contributions from Evian or Perrier, the nation's largest distributors of bottled water. But Texas' liquor industry donated $726,000 to Texas politicians in 2004 alone, with almost $300,000 of that coming from Houstonian John Nau, president of Silver Eagle Distributors LLP.
Suzii Paynter, a lobbyist for the Christian Life Commission of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, thinks water is being taxed in the bill because it does not have an army of lobbyists like the liquor industry and some other big businesses do.
"They (lobbyists) are some of the most highly paid whiners in the world," Paynter said. "Instead of trying to figure out how to make this system work for Texas and its kids and everybody sharing the burden of it, they see their job as whining about their industry."
Time and again in the House's proposed tax bill, which will be debated Monday, the largest political donors are the businesses that receive the biggest tax breaks or have their taxes left untouched. Some of the biggest industrial sector donors in the past two years and their proposed tax cuts are:
- Finance, insurance, real estate -- $896.5M a year in tax cuts; $7.3M in political contributions.
- Utilities, transportation -- $222.2M in cuts; $6.1M in donations.
- Oil, gas, petrochemical -- $399M in cuts; $5.1M in donations.
Why am I not surprised?
A proposed $11 billion tax bill before the Texas House would create a new sales tax on bottled water, but the excise tax on beer, wine and liquor escapes any increase -- as it has since 1984.
A search of the Texas Ethics Commission database turns up no campaign contributions from Evian or Perrier, the nation's largest distributors of bottled water. But Texas' liquor industry donated $726,000 to Texas politicians in 2004 alone, with almost $300,000 of that coming from Houstonian John Nau, president of Silver Eagle Distributors LLP.
Suzii Paynter, a lobbyist for the Christian Life Commission of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, thinks water is being taxed in the bill because it does not have an army of lobbyists like the liquor industry and some other big businesses do.
"They (lobbyists) are some of the most highly paid whiners in the world," Paynter said. "Instead of trying to figure out how to make this system work for Texas and its kids and everybody sharing the burden of it, they see their job as whining about their industry."
Time and again in the House's proposed tax bill, which will be debated Monday, the largest political donors are the businesses that receive the biggest tax breaks or have their taxes left untouched. Some of the biggest industrial sector donors in the past two years and their proposed tax cuts are:
- Finance, insurance, real estate -- $896.5M a year in tax cuts; $7.3M in political contributions.
- Utilities, transportation -- $222.2M in cuts; $6.1M in donations.
- Oil, gas, petrochemical -- $399M in cuts; $5.1M in donations.
Why am I not surprised?