Businesses don't care about income taxes, but business taxes

Marian Carew

Know your taxes: All lottery winnings are taxable. The Arizona Lottery will withhold, or immediately retain, 25 percent of winnings for federal taxes and 5 percent for Arizona taxes (30 percent and 6 percent for non-resident aliens). The ultimate tax liability could be higher than the amounts withheld, especially on multimillion-dollar payouts.

Re: Dave Wells' letter Wednesday," Actually, Arizona can't afford to drop the income tax."

We moved to the Phoenix area a month ago after living in Dallas for 27 years. Imagine our delight in our property tax reduction on a comparable house from $6,000 in Dallas to $2,100 in Goodyear.

There has been a movement in Texas to start a state income tax to alleviate the burden for the homeowner and tax all residents of the state.

State income tax is not the incentive to attract businesses to relocate to Arizona. The incentive is to offer businesses great tax incentives, such as no taxes the first five years in business or longer.

Check out our former governor, Rick Perry, and what he has done with business incentives to lure corporations to relocate to Texas. Toyota's corporate offices are moving from California, State Farm's corporate offices, Nebraska Furniture Mart the size of 21 football fields and Sriracha hot sauce is moving a plant and offices. This is just in Dallas. Houston, Austin and San Antonio are experiencing the same.

Why? Because the business taxes are in their favor.

— Marian Carew, Goodyear