Guest Editorial: Mitchell county supervisor pursues “inequity” for taxpayers

Guest Editorial:

Iowa Sales Tax: Not everyone plays by the same rules. When rules are manipulated to benefit a select group or individual, others are placed at a disadvantage, both competitive and financial. In the case of manipulating sales tax receipts, the State of Iowa, counties, cities and local school districts also come up short – short of needed tax revenues.

With the Sate of Iowa projected to be short $196 million this fiscal year, one would believe all holes in the dike would want to be plugged by state government – NOT.

Purchase $1,000 worth of delivered lumber at the board store; your bill: $1,070.  $1,000 for lumber, $50 sales tax for Iowa, $10 for local government and $5 for local schools.

Sales tax has always been determined on the cost of goods sold.  This is true in every department store and retail store in your community.  This is not true of one company in one industry.

How did that lumber go from the forest to the saw mill to the board store and eventually to the final user?  It was trucked.  Trucking was included int he cost of goods sales tax was fully added.  The same holds true with the clothes and other goods sold in our retail stores.  Recouping all expenses are included in the sales price.

Now comes Redi-Mix Concrete.  Trucking is also incurred in the delivery of concrete.  On a particular concrete invoice, it was shown 26.5 yards of 4000 PSI concrete was delivered.  Cost: $50 a yard for concrete, total $1,312.50; there was also a $58 a yard charge for trucking this concrete less than 1/2 mile from the plant.  Total sales tax exempt cost, $1,522.50.  Sales tax was only paid on the $1,312.50 figure for sales tax of $91.88; sales tax was not paid on the $1,522.50 of vastly inflated trucking, $106.58, of which $76.15 should have gone to the State of Iowa; $15.23 to local government and $15.23 to local schools.  Multiply this by scores of deliveries per hour by this company and you can begin to learn the magnitude of this manipulation, the shorting of revenues to especially local governments and our educational system.

To top it all off, on some invoices, there is also a fuel surcharge.  Apparently fuel does not qualify to be part of the delivery charge.

I called this Redi-Mix plant and explained I had my own Redi-Mix truck, therefore I wanted to purchase my concrete for the billing price of $50 a yard – NOT. With my own truck, low and behold, the cost of actual concrete was substantially higher.

For over three years, I have pursued this inequity, this manipulation of our sales tax, to no avail. The Attorney General’s Office, key members of the Iowa Legislature and members of the Iowa Department of Revenue declined to pursue this documented case. Meh proof has fallen on deaf ears. The tax-paying citizens of Iowa should be furious.

Meat for the goose is sauce for the gander. If I was a retail store, why not claim a percentage of sales is trucking so therefore part of the retail sales are tax exempt. This will also allow the retailer to compete with internet on line no sales tax purchases.

A rock quarry could set the price of rock at $2 a ton and the rest of the cost of trucking, thus being extremely competitive over its competition. Big business has been receiving advantages over unsuspecting taxpayers for decades, why not expand it just a little bit more. State government has proven it is willing to look the other way.

It is time to be honest, government works for the super rich, the 1%. Manipulating sales tax will only become worse and we the working class will pay the price. Don’t expect anything to happen in the Iowa Legislature concerning this sales tax issue. The super rich, the 1% has the best government money can buy.

Stan Walk
Mitchell County Supervisor
St. Ansgar, Iowa

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