As part of what may be a longer-term tax reform effort, North Carolina enacted legislation in July that makes a few changes. The one that I want to highlight is broadening the sales tax base to include entertainment. That is, admission to live theater and sporting events and a few other activities that fall within.
While this might sound like a bad idea to many people, consider how much some entertainment costs – season tickets to a major league sports team, premium seating for an Elton John concert. To exempt this type of consumption from sales tax just means that the rate has to be higher on tangible personal property, such as clothes and household items. It makes the sales tax less equitable because it ends up exempting a good amount of consumption of high income taxpayers, paying for that with a higher tax on basic consumption items for everyone, such as clothing and school supplies.
The blog post includes reference to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics on how much is spent on entertainment by high income individuals versus low income individuals – its quite a difference.
Annette Nellen, CPA, Esq., is a professor in and director of San Jose State University’s graduate tax program (MST), teaching courses in tax research, accounting methods, property transactions, state taxation, employment tax, ethics, tax policy, tax reform, and high technology tax issues.
Annette is the immediate past chair of the AICPA Individual Taxation Technical Resource Panel and a current member of the Executive Committee of the Tax Section of the California Bar. Annette is a regular contributor to the AICPA Tax Insider and Corporate Taxation Insider e-newsletters. She is the author of BNA Portfolio #533, Amortization of Intangibles.
Annette has testified before the House Ways & Means Committee, Senate Finance Committee, California Assembly Revenue & Taxation Committee, and tax reform commissions and committees on various aspects of federal and state tax reform.
Prior to joining SJSU, Annette was with Ernst & Young and the IRS.
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