Taxes are collected from numerous sources, but taxes are ultimately paid by the consumer for the products and services offered. When a person buys a product or service from a business that pays tax, the tax is in the cost you pay. Also, businesses have to hire people and services to pay the taxes they collect, so the purchaser also pays that cost. It is cheaper for the consumer if the costs of collecting pass-through taxes are minimized. Gross receipts taxes would be a great place to start tax reform. Another great benefit to New Mexicans would be a substantive income tax reduction that would reduce the need for two-income families by reducing proposed social programs to aid working parents. This means more mommy and daddy times for children, and less government tax and bloated government overhead and administrative costs; that is a win-win for families.

 

Sales tax is a direct tax collected by businesses at the point of sale and is paid by the consumer of the goods or services. There are operating expenses for a business to collect and pay taxes, and those costs are included in the price of the product or service sold to the consumer. On the other hand, gross receipts tax is a tax on all business revenue. Gross receipts tax does not consider the operating costs, cost of goods and services sold, and business expenses that have not been paid when the tax is rendered to the governing entity. Hence, gross receipts tax does not correctly portray the profits and losses of the

business and is always to the benefit of the government. My position is to eliminate gross receipts tax. Other methods of replacing the unfair gross receipts tax may be available.

 

We must eliminate the destructive gross receipts tax scheme and replace it with a more favorable tax system based on collecting tax at the point of consumption. Other options can create a fairer business climate. The gross receipts tax system needs to go the way of the dinosaur. 

 

 I especially oppose all business dealings with foreign entities that utilize sweatshop conditions, child labor, slave labor, and massive pollution as exists in the People's Republic of China, a republic in name only. I believe that manufacturing should return to the United States as a requirement for transitioning power sources in the United States. Also, new opportunities that New Mexico may be able to develop include expansion to transform New Mexico into a terminal tourism destination.

 

Refer to Mark Rhonchetti’s Economic recovery and inflation relief plan.

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GAS AND NATURAL RESOURCES

 

New Mexicans should benefit from the abundant surpluses the state experiences over gas and oil production, rather than going to legislative pet projects that fail to benefit all New Mexicans

I believe protecting New Mexico's land, water and air are necessary. Having said that, I believe there are significant opportunities for deregulation reforms to enhance business responsibility and recreational opportunities. Regulations must be adopted under specific statutory authorization and must be data-driven with no room for the uncertainty of outcome. I believe New Mexico must adopt a procedure of legislative authorization of regulatory actions before implementation. Regulations are a significant impact on the operating costs of business. I believe that an investigation of regulations may reveal dysfunctionality or competing interests with other regulations. An example of this may be competing interests to improve water supplies through land management practices instead of hands-off practices on wildland vegetation that increase fire and erosion. Many installations of solar panel equipment have the potential to increase soil erosion and impact water quality significantly. Still, the desire to install solar equipment should not be allowed more lenient environmental regulations that are not equivalent to regulations required of oil and gas producers. All regulations must be equally applied.

 

Multiple uses of our public lands must be sustained as opposed to single-use preserves proposed by environmental groups and trends in federal agencies that have superseded or deemphasized the management of federal lands for multiple uses. Another avenue that must be explored for state lands is to protect multiple uses through tort reform to restrict judicial priorities restricting multiple uses.

 

Refer to Mark Rhonchetti’s  Annual Oil and gas rebate