The governor should be held accountable by the General Assembly for all revenue, including any new taxes, spent by SCDOT. Our roads crisis demands some increase in revenue to reverse our slide into complete decay. SCDOT may need more in the future, but it would be fiscally foolish to give them an additional $1 billion per year before the governor presents a reform plan. Our current Secretary of Transportation has said that an increase of $400 million per year would allow SCDOT to bring our current system up to an acceptable condition without initiating any new projects.
The bipartisan plan cuts the gas tax and shifts the difference to a sales tax based on the wholesale price of gas. In effect, it shifts revenue from a stable, fair and visible revenue stream to an unstable, unfair and hidden revenue stream. Our roads system receives the vast majority of funding from our gas tax. It was last increased 25 years ago to 16.75 cents per gallon. Inflation and an expanded road system have devalued the effectiveness of the current tax rate. Increasing the current gas tax by an additional 10 cents per gallon tax would raise around $400 million per year. It would be politically foolish to pass a confusing tax swap when a simple increase in the gas tax would yield an adequate amount of revenue.
The bipartisan plan offers a nominal amount of income tax relief — about $48 per filer — to offset the road tax increase. We have an unfair and antiquated tax system. Our sales tax system has over 80 exemptions for various groups and industries. We actually exempt more revenue than we collect. The income tax structure allows 40 percent of those who file an income tax return to pay zero taxes. These two systems shift most of our overall state tax burden to our working population. The tax swap provision in the bipartisan bill forces our workers to shoulder even more of the tax burden and further confuses our tax system. Having never benefited from any meaningful income tax relief, our workers deserve more than a $48 reduction.
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South Carolina Association of Taxpayers 