Opinions?
Missouri House votes to hike newspaper tax after tough editorial
By The Associated Press
04.16.04
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — The Missouri House has voted to raise taxes on the state's two largest newspapers after an editorial in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch branded the Republican-led chamber the "House of Hypocrites."
Democratic lawmakers decried the tax proposal as retaliation. But the Republican sponsor insisted he was simply "closing corporate tax loopholes."
Legislators in many states over the years have considered taxes on newspaper publishing, but the actions of the Missouri House could be cause for alarm, Paul McMasters, ombudsman at the Arlington, Va.-based First Amendment Center, said yesterday.
“The newspaper associations usually manage to use the Constitution — and common sense — to fight off such proposals,” McMasters said. "But it is a very troubling situation if indeed the effort is linked to trying to punish newspapers who have expressed criticism of the Legislature."
