Maybe it finally is time for a city sales tax of one sort or another to help make ends meet in Anchorage, but -- and this is a big but -- trusting this Assembly would require a very long stretch.
Its majority already has blithely ignored voters' will on the matter of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual rights and then monkeyed with how the voter-approved tax cap is calculated to allow the Assembly to jack up property taxes.
The question of whether to have a sales tax, seasonal or otherwise, revolves around this: Can this tax-and-spend Assembly majority and Mayor Ethan Berkowitz have a sales tax and a property levy -- and not abuse both? Many have real doubts given their recent track record.
If Anchorage Assemblyman Bill Evans has his way, voters will be asked for the umpteenth time to approve such a tax -- this time to be set at about 4 percent.
Among its provisions: Food, medicine and services would be excluded, as would liquor, cigarettes and other items already taxed. The maximum tax would be $200, businesses would be paid up to $5,000 annually to collect the tax, and 3 percent would go to paying city debt. The tax would not be seasonal.
Evans says a sales tax, because of the city's voter-adopted tax cap, would reduce property taxes by a like amount collected. How much that would be remains to be calculated, he says.
While the city is not bashful about taxing tobacco and car rentals and lodging, general sales tax proposals in Anchorage have been as popular as a dose of scabies. Getting a sales tax approved by voters would require nearly a miracle -- a 60 percent supermajority vote. Past sales tax proposals have gone belly-up.
There have been previous attempts to pass a sales tax in the city. Voters in 2001 rejected a proposed 2 percent sales tax by a vote of 71 percent to 29 percent. A 3 percent sales tax proposed in 2006 was demolished at the polls, 70 percent to 30 percent. A sales tax was the major issue in the 2009 runoff campaign between former Mayor Dan Sullivan and challenger Eric Croft, with Croft accusing Sullivan of wanting to substitute a sales tax for property taxes.
Sullivan pushed again for a sales tax in 2013. The idea fizzled, but several candidates batted around the idea in the last municipal election. There have been other proposals for sales taxes and variations of this and that, but, as you will notice, there still is no general sales tax.
Evans is pragmatic about the likelihood of such a tax winning voter approval.
"I think it has about a 35 percent chance of passing," he says. "It will be hard."
The ideas routinely pushed by proponents in the sometimes heated debates over a sales tax in Anchorage are that such a levy would diversify the city's revenue stream beyond property taxpayers -- who now shoulder an unfair portion of the tax burden -- and reduce property taxes.
Proponents push the notion that such a tax could capture money from Valley residents and tourists and other visitors who use city services and facilities and pay nothing. It is a way for the city to get its fair share, they say, and spread the load.
Opponents do not buy any of that. They do not trust government or condone much of its spending and believe if such a tax were adopted, it would only go up over time, as it usually does elsewhere. Worse, they say, instituting such a tax simply leaves the city with a second tax -- and there is no doubt in their minds both would increase.
Then, there is the state. Alaska is one of only five states with no statewide sales tax. Legislators -- facing a $3.5 billion deficit and desperate for money -- sooner rather than later will move to impose a sales tax.
"I'm not particularly in love with the idea of sales taxes," Evans says, but If the city has no sales tax in place when the state adopts its levy, it will be too difficult and expensive to sell one to city voters -- and the tax money collected here will be funneled to Juneau rather than do some good in Anchorage.
Evans has a long, uphill trudge to win approval for the tax. People do not trust politicians. It is hard for the average homeowner to understand why the mortgage keeps going up and the city keeps talking about housing drunks.
Maybe it finally is time for a city sales tax of one sort or another to help make ends meet in Anchorage, but -- and this is a big but -- trusting this Assembly would require a very long stretch.
Very long, indeed.
Paul Jenkins is editor of the AnchorageDailyPlanet.com, a division of Porcaro Communications.
The views expressed here are the writer's own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary@alaskadispatch.com.