State Republicans are rejecting a call from Democrats to study the state’s tax structure.
South Dakota is a low tax state, but Democrats point to the state’s low wage as a problem.
State Representative Ray Ring is a doctor of economics. He says taxes relative to personal income in South Dakota places the state 47th in the country.
Ring says the state needs to look closer at the tax structure.
“What we will see is we are one of the few states that still tax farm equipment,” Ring says. “That still tax manufacturing equipment, that still tax utilities—business utilities—so all that tax burden on businesses I think may be discouraging economic development.”
House Bill 1156 sought to establish a multi-year task force to study the state’s tax structure by bringing in out-of-state experts to examine the issue.
Ring says the state’s tax structure has not been studied in thirty years.