The Tax Foundation analyzed OU President David Boren’s recent Sales Tax increase proposal for education and found it would propel Oklahoma to the highest state and local average sales tax rate in the country.
The measure would also result in Oklahoma City and Tulsa having some of the highest state and local sales taxes combined in comparison to other high tax cities across the country.
Readers should note that no one in Oklahoma government is allowed to audit Higher Education institutions currently funded by Oklahoma taxes, but this doesn’t stop Boren and other addicts to other people’s money in academia from asking for more.
OU President David Boren
University of Oklahoma President David Boren, a former Governor and U.S. Senator, has launched a petition initiative to raise the state sales tax by one percentage point, with the estimated $615 million dedicated to education (including $120 million for higher education and enough money for a $5,000 raise for each teacher in the state).
While Oklahoma’s state sales tax of 4.5 percent is relatively low among states, there are also local sales taxes that reach as high as an additional 6.5 percent. In Fort Gibson, consumers pay 11 percent; in the largest cities of Oklahoma City and Tulsa the rates are 8.375 percent and 8.517 percent, respectively, after adding up the state, county, and local sales taxes.
David Boren (left) served 4 years as governor and 15 years in the U.S. Senate all as a Democrat before being appointed President of OU in 1994. Boren also served for nearly a decade on Yale’s Board of Trustees.
Adjusted for these rates and for population, the OK combined state and average local sales tax is 8.78 percent, the sixth highest in the country, behind Tennessee (9.46 percent), Arkansas (9.27 percent), Louisiana (9.01 percent), Alabama (8.93 percent), and Washington (8.90 percent). (It’s worth noting that Tennessee and Washington have high sales taxes but have no income tax.)
Click here for more from the Tax Foundation.
One thought more: Those that can – do.
Those that can’t – teach.
Those who can’t teach – administrate, pontificate and pander in corruption.