Americans for Prosperity released a report that estimates how Utah businesses would be impacted by the harmful border-adjusted tax that some Washington politicians want to include in a comprehensive tax reform package.
The report says on average, an individual importer in the state of Utah would have a huge new tax burden of $668,000. Even with some adjustment to the value of the dollar, the 11,100 importers in the state would end up with a tax burden that amounts to 71 percent of all federal business income taxes paid in Utah in 2014.
The report, produced in conjunction with Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, uses publicly available data to illustrate the burdensome costs this 20-percent tax would have on individual importers and quantifies the dramatic new tax burden across all importers in Utah.
AFP and Freedom Partners both support reforms to make the tax code simpler and more competitive, but they oppose including the border-adjusted tax because it amounts to a trillion-dollar tax hike on American consumers. The groups say this consumer tax would drive up the cost of most everyday goods for consumers across Utah and the nation— everything from food and clothing to toys and school supplies.
Click here to view the report:
Border Adjustment: The Impact Across the States
Americans for Prosperity-Utah State Director Evelyn Everton issued the following statement:
“Americans have been demanding comprehensive tax reform for years, and we have a great opportunity to deliver a system that works for every American – but we can’t have an import tax like this. Especially when we find out Utah consumers and businesses would bear the brunt of this tax by forcing importers to pay more— they would end up with a tax burden equal to most of what all Utah businesses paid the federal government in 2014. While some republicans think a BAT will help jobs, the reality facing Utahns is a crushing financial blow that will hurt job growth and limit opportunity. This is a bad deal for every state that would have to face a consumer tax, but especially for Utah, which bears the brunt of this policy. This hurts the very consumers we want to help with tax reform.”
