HARTFORD -- When the state was flush with money in the good times, the legislature avoided looking at the huge number of exemptions to the state's sales tax. As such, consumers currently pay no sales tax on haircuts, newspapers, prescription drugs, boat repairs, and food purchased at supermarkets.
But with the state now facing a projected budget deficit of $3.5 billion in the next fiscal year, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has repeatedly said that "everything is on the table.''
As part of that mantra, Malloy and his team have been conducting a comprehensive analysis of the state's complicated and extensive system of tax exemptions and credits that total more than $5 billion annually.
More than $3 billion of those exemptions are related to the sales tax, and a prominent University of Connecticut law school professor says the state needs to analyze the long-running sales tax exemption on food. Richard Pomp, a Harvard Law School graduate who has been teaching for 40 years, says that eliminating the 6 percent sales tax on food would generate $400 million annually for the state.
The exemption is designed to help the poor because they pay a larger percentage of their income on food than the wealthy. But Pomp said in an interview that the exemption is "a pretty stupid, inefficient way'' to help the poor because the across-the-board exemption also covers multi-millionaires in Fairfield County who buy steak and lobster at the local supermarket.
Pomp, a tenured professor who has been earning a very solid, six-figure income for years, said it makes little sense for him - and others who are far wealthier - to receive the benefit.
"I'm perfectly capable of paying a tax on food,'' Pomp said. "Why do I get the exemption?''