Goldwater Institute Heads To Arizona Supreme Court To Challenge Pinal County’s “Illegal Sales Tax”

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Arizona Supreme Court (Photoby Kevin Bondelli/ Creative Commons)

On Thursday, December 10, the Goldwater Institute is scheduled to appear in the Arizona Supreme Court to argue the merits of Vangilder v. Arizona Department of Revenue.

The Goldwater Institute is challenging Pinal County’s illegal tax on retail sales known as Proposition 417. According to Goldwater, “although state law specifies how counties are supposed to adopt taxes to fix roads, officials with the Pinal Regional Transportation Agency decided to do it a different way—imposing the tax specifically on retail sales (which is not allowed) and then dividing up the tax so that it applies to the first $10,000 of a purchase but not at amounts above that.”

“In other words,” argues Goldwater, “buy two $5,000 industrial air conditioners and the tax applies. Buy one $15,000 piece of farm equipment, and you get a discount. State law doesn’t allow that—that would create a labyrinth of different tax rules in Arizona’s 15 counties—which is why the state Department of Revenue agrees with us that the county broke the law.”

Goldwater claims that the “day-to-day purchases of lower-income citizens will be taxed more heavily than expensive items like new cars and jewelry. That isn’t just unfair, it’s also illegal.”

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