Mike Iantosca: Tax deception at its best

Regarding the April 19 column “The truth about income taxes”: Rob Christensen committed the ultimate sin of deception.

He conflated the 60 percent of North Carolinians who believe their taxes have increased by comparing their total burden with only income taxes. This is the game played repeatedly: Cut one tax and raise other costs, directly or indirectly, shifting the burden to the middle class. This is how wealth inequality has been engineered for decades, and why the middle class continues to lose the class war being waged by the proxies of the rich and powerful.

“Tax cutters” can accurately claim they cut income and business taxes. They pray we don’t notice the incremental array of increases to pay for them, who wins and who pays. We do!

By eliminating deductions, raising fees, making new services taxable, forcing local governments to raise costs to make up for lost business license fees, increasing medical costs by refusing to accept federal Medicaid expansion, enabling future gas taxes to skyrocket and cutting the most basic benefits for the involuntary unemployed, the “tax-cutters” shifted the burden to the middle class to give to the wealthy.

Caught, they predictably punt to empty promises of “trickle down” that never materialize or, at best, are inconsequential.

This story was originally published April 25, 2015 at 4:00 PM with the headline "Mike Iantosca: Tax deception at its best."