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R.I. bad for business?

Carter711

By Carter711
in Rhode Island

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Carter711 Whistle-Stop

Carter711

Posted
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I know everyone loves these national rankings, but I posted this b/c its more analytical than say the "Happiest States" rankings...

The Tax Foundation, a fairly well respected Washington research group, has ranked Rhode Island as the least business friendly state in the country this year... at least when it comes to taxes. R.I. ranked particularly poorly for its income tax rate (48th) property tax rate (50th) and unemployment insurance tax rate (50th). The state's corporate tax rate and sales tax rate both ranked 35th.

The Tax Foundation doesn't just consider tax rates but five other factors - simplicity, transparency, stability, neutrality, and growth-promotion.

Also faring poorly is Ohio (49th), New Jersey (48th), New York (47th), Vermont (46th), and California (45th). Wyoming ranked first.

Which States Are Best for Business? The 2007 State Business Tax Climate Index

http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/1923.html

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Jerry2 Hamlet

Jerry2

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I don't think this list is intended to paint Wyoming and South Dakota as the next "it" places to start a business. It's merely pointing out that their tax codes are simpler and more effective. It's not taking into account transportation, cost of living expenses, or salary either. This has been brought up many times before, but it shows that RI's tax structure is ineffective and could potentially be a deciding factor for businesses that are looking to re-locate. If there were other compensating factors like mass transportation, a strong talent pool, and good schools, the ineffective tax structure component wouldn't be emphasized so strongly. When people are looking at a casino to put more money back in their wallets( complete oxymoron), you know there is a problem.

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Cotuit Megalopolis

Cotuit

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I think it is important to bring our sales tax into parity with Massachusetts (it might even help attract people across the border to make it a couple points lower, but I wouldn't want to shock the treasury too much). With such a small state, there is really no resident with a car that can't rationalize a run for the border when needing to shop. If we could keep our residents in state I don't think we'd even notice the 2 points were gone at the end of the day. Having parity may attract some retailers that were looking to go to bordering towns in Massachusetts. Now we just need to figure out a way to attract retailers without soiling our state with more big box strip sprawl.

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gregw Hamlet

gregw

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Making half arguments as is being done here is probably why the mods look at posting these types of things as bad. I guess everyone likes to dig their own little trenches and throw out little bits of information that support their argument, but it doesn't really get to any point.
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gregw Hamlet

gregw

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Point taken.

It wasn't meant to be a slam. Just a point on debate in general.

Let's take an issue and say that issue is an easy one, there are two points of view and there are only 4 discussion points.

Person A says "look at this single discussion point of fact. Issue XYZ sucks!"

Person B says "no, Issue XYZ doesn't suck, look at discussion point 2"

4 people chime in with "Yeah, B is right, you aren't looking at this properly A"

Person C (me for instance) chimes in with "actually point 2 doesn't really refute point 1"

et al.

Here we have an issue with probably 6 or 7 points of view and at least 12 discussion points.

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mental757 Burg

mental757

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while there is certainly room for major improvements to our business atmosphere, the number one thing we have going for us is our location. The NE is still a very important business center in general and (most of) our leaders are looking to improve 'other' things than the tax structure (which is a complicated task to say the least). Infrastructure is vastly improving (Commuter and freight rail, I-195 relocation, airport improvements, etc.) with clear opportunities to improve other corridors (Providence-Woonsocket-Worcester). As long as we can chip away at the glaring (tax) issues going forwrd, we'll be OK IMO.

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runawayjim Metropolis

runawayjim

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Posted

It wasn't meant to be a slam. Just a point on debate in general.

Let's take an issue and say that issue is an easy one, there are two points of view and there are only 4 discussion points.

Person A says "look at this single discussion point of fact. Issue XYZ sucks!"

Person B says "no, Issue XYZ doesn't suck, look at discussion point 2"

4 people chime in with "Yeah, B is right, you aren't looking at this properly A"

Person C (me for instance) chimes in with "actually point 2 doesn't really refute point 1"

et al.

Here we have an issue with probably 6 or 7 points of view and at least 12 discussion points.

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