Steve Beshear wants to raise your taxes

There aren't a lot of surprises in the tax revisions announced yesterday by Gov. Steve Beshear. For many Kentuckians, taxes will go up, while certain special interests will see tax breaks.

Beshear's tax plan seeks to impose the sales tax on services such as automobile repairs and tanning bed visits, increases taxes on some retirement benefits/pensions, does away with the "married filing separately on combined return" income tax status that usually results in lower taxes and/or higher refunds, eliminates the state's modest individual income tax credit and increases taxes on cigarettes.

Meanwhile, some alcoholic beverage taxes are lowered and the horse industry gets undeserved tax breaks. There's a small reduction in individual income tax rates, but that won't be noticed by the average taxpayer. The slight decrease in the corporate income tax rate won't do anything to attract jobs to Kentucky.

And he's pushing for allowing a local option sales tax, which is really what this state needs so our sales taxes can be a hodgepodge of rates from locality to locality like Tennessee. The Volunteer State's lack of a state income tax is greatly offset by its outrageously high and varied sales taxes. You should pay the same sales tax no matter where you buy something, be it Nashville or Pigeon Forge.

In short, Beshear's tax plan is a joke. Just like he is. This plan should get a bipartisan panning and be sent back to the overflowing sewer from which it originated.