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A Wall Street Journal editorial answers the question of how much money the Amazon Tax raised for North Carolina: $4.6 million as of January. The tax was supposed to bring in $35.9 million in FY2009-10 and FY2010-11, or roughly $12 million every six months. Before the tax even passed the legislature, Amazon and other online retailers cut their affiliates in North Carolina, which meant even less income tax revenue for the state.
And yet Rep. Joe Hackney, who was Speaker of the House when this tax passed, continues to say it was the hard choices made in budgets over the past two years that left the state in good enough shape that the current legislature can raise taxes to balance the budget. “We're not broke,” he said in a recent interview. We may not be Illinois, but taxpayers are tapped out.
