Louisiana Treasurer John Kennedy Says Gov. Jindal’s Tax Plan Is Interesting And Complicated

Louisiana State Treasurer John Kennedy joined 'Mornings With Ken and Bernie' today to discuss Governor Bobby Jindal's proposal to eliminate the state's income tax.  According to Kennedy,

The most objective way to describe the Governor's plan is to say it's interesting and probably complicated.  It is very complicated.  The easy part and the good part is we would eliminate personal and corporate income taxes.

Kennedy said he supported a similar plan two years ago to reduce income tax.

But we were going to do it through reducing spending, consulting contracts and that sort of thing.  The Governor's plan would fill the deficit in the budget by raising and imposing new taxes.  He would raise the state's sales tax and with the local sales taxes that would amount to about 11% making it the highest in the nation.

In addition to raising sales taxes across the board Kennedy said,

The Governor would raise cigarette taxes from 36 cents a pack to $1.41 a pack.  He would eliminate about 200 tax exemptions and interestingly he would eliminate about half the exemptions  for the oil and gas industry.

You can hear more about what Treasurer Kennedy has to say about the Jindal tax propsal by listening to the interview: