Tax loopholes

by David Safier

It's time to get specific about what isn't being taxed in Arizona.

• Country club membership (because country clubs are a necessity for the rich like food is for everyone else?)
• Salon and spa services — massages, facials, haircuts, and so on
• 4-inch pipes (4-inch pipes?)
• Machinery bought for mining (because mining is such a clean industry that does so much for our long term economy, for the first 20 years before the ore runs out, that we don't want too much of the company's money flowing into the tax coffers?)
• "Up to $420 for making a donation to a private school" (Is this separate from tuition tax credits, meaning someone can give $920 tax free dollars to private schools? Can someone clarify this one, please?)

To recap: we have to cut off health care for children and everyone who makes more than 1/3 of poverty level income, and we have to gut our dead last education spending still more, so no one has to pay sales tax on country club membership and spa services.

Something is very, very wrong with this picture.