I was a-Googling last night, and just wanted to take a moment to remind the world of the audacity of the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce:

Here’s the Chamber, taking credit for the rewards reaped by Rhode Islanders via the federal Earned Income Tax Credit:

Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce President Laurie White was pleased to join Providence Mayor David Cicilline and other community leaders at the John Hope Settlement House in Providence Thursday, June 26 to announce that this year upwards of 21,00 local households received more than $43.7 million in Earned Income Tax Credits (EITC).

For the last seven year, the Chamber has been a part of the effort to raise awareness surrounding the program, which is considered the nation’s most important anti-poverty program. This year, through the collaborative work of the Chamber, the United Way of Rhode Island, the Providence EITC Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Coalition and other business and community organizations, there a 25 percent increase in the number of low income filers assisted and a 34 percent increase in refunds claimed.

“By helping employers learn about the tax credit, we are not only allowing them to build trust and good will in teh workplace, but they are giving thier employees their employees the ability to supplement thier incomes, which is crticial in today’s challenging economy,” Chamber President Laurie White said at the event. “The success of these hard-working families is essential to development in the city, as they are foundation of our continued prosperity.”

Please remember that the Chamber has actually OPPOSED common-sense efforts to expand and optimize EITC outreach — even while there’s about $100 million unclaimed dollars hovering over Rhode Island in any given moment.

Next we’ve got this:

Rhode Island’s tax burden does not stack-up well against competing states. The Rhode Island business community is speaking out loudly and emphatically on this topic. The Chamber is focused on engaging the business community to protect the flat tax [and] capital gains tax.

With the flat tax, we’re dead-even with Mass on income tax. Our capital gains tax is WAY LOWER than that of Mass and Connecticut. (Which, if one thinks that unearned income should be taxed at a reasonable rate, does mean we don’t “stack-up well” with our neighbors.)

We’re also in the bottom 20% of the nation in terms of fees and fines paid to our government. When you aggregate taxes, fees, and fines, we’re exactly average, relative to other states.

There’s one spot, however, where we are worse than most states — the property tax. It’s the tax that hits small businesses and rank-and-file homeowners and renters hardest. (It’s also the tax that big businesses — like the behemoths who control the Chamber — most successfully evade, via targeted municipal tax breaks.)

Why are property taxes so high? Because the state under-funds our cities and towns and our schools, forcing them to raise property taxes — the only tax they have discretion over. (We’re worst or second-worst in the country in terms of property tax reliance for education funding.) Property taxes hit home hardest, and are the reason that average Rhode Islanders feel so heavily taxed. And, in large part, we have the Chamber’s efforts to thank.

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