The former Finance secretary said figures cited in the the revenue generating measures offered by the Senate are “pure speculations.”
In an interview yesterday, Inos said the Legislature has to come up with an “educated guess” as to how revenue measures could balance the budget.
Although he believes the administration can sit down with lawmakers to come up with revenue generating measures, Inos said increasing taxes will adversely affect business activities which will decrease revenues.
When you increase the cigarette tax, for example, behavioral changes will occur which will change the volume of products sold in the market, he said.
So tax revenue that will be collected is not going to be the same, he added.
These things should be taken into consideration, the lt. governor said.
The Senate conferees on Friday submitted to their House counterparts a calculation of how much House Bill 17-40, the fee hike measure, could generate.
According to the bill, the business license fee increase will bring in an additional $1.1 million to the government in FY 2011: poker fee increase, $673,000; automated teller machines, $60,000; soda and sweet taxes, $1.7 million; cigarette tax, $4.5 million; tobacco tax $14,497; beer tax, $592,937; alcohol tax, $209,861; wine tax, $642,287; cell phone tax, $15,000; bar tax, $425,000; alcohol license fee, $200,000; tobacco control fees, $100,000; rebate cut, $5.3 million; and customs surcharge, $400,000.
Inos does not believe that the bill would be “seriously entertained” by the conference committee.
He said what the Legislature has to do is to pass a balanced budget based on available resources.
If there will be any additional resources, the Legislature may pass a supplemental budget later, he added.
“But we first have to satisfy the minimum requirements to provide critical public services. And if that cannot be satisfied right now, I don’t think we can talk about a supplemental budget.”
