Four Arizona cities rank among the nation's top 10 municipalities for highest sales-tax levies, according to a new report.


Consumers in Glendale, Phoenix, Tucson and Mesa pay combined sales-tax rates in the 9 percent range, placing them among the top 10 in the nation, with Scottsdale, Chandler and Gilbert only slightly lower. Birmingham and Montgomery, both in Alabama, had the highest combined state and local sales-tax rates at 10 percent.

Intel Corp.CEO Craig Barrett’s Jan. 14 announcement that the computer chip giant is considering upgrading and increasing production capacity at its Chandler plant is quite gratifying, and should give impetus to proposals to trim Arizona’s too-high business taxes, which surely will be a factor in the final decision.

Two truths about taxes: They are necessary. They discourage behaviors that are taxed, while they implicitly encourage behaviors that are not taxed.

In Arizona, there is a third truth about taxes: The balance between business and personal taxes is heavily lopsided. Consequently, Arizona's tax code is helping create an economy exactly opposite of what Arizonans most often say they want.

Which would you rather have move to Arizona: (a) a sufficient number of retirees to create 1,000 new jobs in grocery and retail stores or (b) a company that creates 1,000 new high-tech jobs?

During last year's hot, sweaty real estate boogie, Jim Malone was a wallflower.

Malone was sitting the dance out in his South Side home, where he and his wife have lived for the last 52 years and raised their two daughters.

Last week, he felt a little of the vibration from the dance floor when he received his property valuation for 2007 from the Pima County Assessor's Office.

Malone's valuation increased by 30 percent, not that far above the average increase for county homeowners.

Republican legislators are trying to put together a tax cut package for this session. That's not an easy job for a Legislature to accomplish without executive branch leadership.

Spending pressures are incessant, and the Legislature is more prone to succumb than the executive branch, at least when it is led by a fiscal conservative. Different lawmakers are fond of different spending programs. Unfortunately, the math of legislative deal-making in such circumstances is nearly always addition, not subtraction.

Wolf! Wolf!

There's a campaign to terrify Arizonans with a phony danger: Property taxes will eat you alive.

Homeowners are easy prey for fear right now.

Property valuations in many places have taken eye-popping jumps. In Maricopa County, the median increase was nearly 52 percent.

Some homeowners may be too rattled to remember: Property values don't dictate tax bills. Taxes are determined by local spending needs.

There is no more widely and confidently held belief about the Arizona public school system than that it has one of the highest dropout rates in the country.

A recent study by the Manhattan Institute, however, indicates that isn't true.

A Jan. 12 announcement about the first round of grants from the Science Foundation of Arizona renews our concerns about allowing this group to fund education projects with little state oversight.

Last year, the Legislature gave $35 million in tax money to the newly created private nonprofit with the intent of spurring new economic development in industries related to bio-science, medicine and cutting edge computer technology.

Pima County homeowners next week will begin receiving property assessment notices, the basis for property taxes. They can expect valuation increases of up to 25 percent, Assessor Bill Staples says.

That could mean increased property taxes. But County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry said he thinks the Board of Supervisors likely will lower the tax rate, as it did last year, at least partly offsetting higher taxes caused by the valuations increases.

A bipartisan measure moving through the Arizona Legislature to cut business taxes likely would mean a higher property taxes for homeowners — at least in the short term.

HCR2037 would exempt the first $150,000 of business equipment from annual property tax levies. The move, according to Rep. Ben Miranda, D-Phoenix, would mean no tax on equipment at all for 90 percent of all firms in the state.

Rep. Michele Reagan, RScottsdale, said the change — which would require voter approval in 2008 — would encourage companies to both locate and expand in the state.