What’s in that reform/reboot of New Mexico’s tax code? (a brief explanation from the author)

There has been a fair amount of media coverage on the sweeping tax reform package introduced by Rep. Jason Harper and two Democrat co-sponsors (Sens. John Arthur Smith and Carlos Cisneros). The bill (HB 412) was introduced last week (but it is  As with any ambitious plan, there are lots of questions and concerns.

Rep. Harper (who calls his studies of New Mexico’s tax code his “second PhD”) has provided a short, but informational white paper on the plan which we have posted here. It beats reading all 347 pages of the bill.

Simply put, we at the Rio Grande Foundation believe that tax reform is a critical step for reforming New Mexico’s economy.  It is widely-recognized that New Mexico’s tax code is broken and it is holding us back (something we wrote a decade ago).

And, before anyone gets up in arms about re-instating the grocery tax as a means of broadening the base and lowering rates, Rio Grande Foundation opposed the reforms that eliminated the tax on groceries more than a decade ago…and so did NM Voices for Children (which now is leading the charge AGAINST re-instating the grocery tax).