Run Waterbury Like a Business?

Waterbury has a large tax rate that drives businesses away. Waterbury has the largest unemployment rate in the state. So this is easy. Get rid of the high tax so businesses could move in and employ people. WS mentioned before that city government cannot just sign a lower tax bill it has to budget for less. Business tax revenue hover above seven percent of the budget. Even if the budget were brought down, say to a surplus, which it has, it won't make too much of a difference to the business tax end of it.

There is a simple dynamic here, high taxes, high unemployment. No mayoral candidate makes this connection but in all fairness, with the mindset that permeates between all three parties, there is little they can do about it. You need revenues to run the city, if you cut taxes you won't pay the bills.

But the mindset is wrong. The archaic tax system lends itself to business moving to low mill rate towns. Mill rates are lower in small towns because they have smaller budgets. Companies want to move to Cheshire, Prospect, Watertown because they have lower mill rates. They don't have superior quasi government run development corporations, they don't have a marketing plan and go to trade show or offer tax "incentives" (that all but admits taxes are too high), no, they have a number and a small one or smaller then ours. The mindset is that lower taxes or the elimination of certain taxes will bring about less revenue. We say that's not true. Just the opposite. The idea is not to get as much as you can from your customer (tax payers) its to get more customers, lower taxes do just that. Just ask the small towns or states with growing populations or countries that are modern and industrious.

We'll say it again. A low tax brings in more business that highers people who pay taxes who then buy things from other businesses that expand and higher more people. The city grows and when a city grows so does its tax base and so does revenue.

It has to start at the business end. They cannot just pay whatever the mill rate is and have it subject to inventory and equipment. That can't happen, it just can't. The outright elimination of business from this system is what's needed. The solution could be that business pay the tax on property that they reside only and forget the tax on equipment and inventory. That would be the start in the right direction. There's one candidate that goes over the usual laundry list of ideas (old ones) of bringing in business and then adds that he would actively look for locations, as in, in his car driving around. Ridiculous. Other candidates have simular ideas and they all seem to harp on the necessity of getting money from state government to make improvements, that is continue to be a government on state welfare.

If Waterbury were friendly to commerce then it wouldn't penalize it in the form of high taxes, it would then maybe grow with a healthy revenue stream and we wouldn't have to go to Hartford with our hand out. There's always talk about running the city as a business and it always refres to the internal workings of the city, or with marketing stradegies, never has it been used in reference to price point, that is, taxes.