2005 Report - Tax Reform That Agrees With Vermont

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Vermont Fair Tax Coalition

VNRC and its Coalition partners Friends of the Earth, Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility, and Vermont Public Interest Research Group have been working since 1998 to promote tax policy reforms that create incentives for environmental protection. This includes environmental tax shifting, eliminating subsidies that harm the environment, and promoting green economics in Vermont.
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VTFC Partners with the Gund Institute

The Vermont Fair Tax Coalition is partnering with the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics on a project that we hope will inspire policy makers to move toward a “green tax” system for Vermont – one that “taxes bads not goods.” A goal of the study is to provide the details for a “revenue neutral” tax shift, where the same revenue would be provided by increasing the level of green taxes, taxes on environmentally damaging activities like pollution and waste, while reducing taxes on productive activities such as work and income.
Vermont currently derives nearly 10% of state revenue from taxes that can be categorized as “green”. These include: energy related taxes and fees such as fuel taxes, motor vehicle purchase and use, utilities gross receipts tax, and electric energy tax; air and water pollution taxes and fees; waste taxes and fees; and land-related taxes and fees like the capital gains tax on speculative land sales, and the property transfer tax. The study will attempt to show what a complete green tax shift might look like in Vermont.
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UVM Class Looks at Green Taxes

Some problems defy the traditional regulatory cure. We have learned after more than three decades that command-and-control strategies are not the only solution for cleaning up our environment or strengthening our economy. Our fish still contain mercury that threatens unborn children. Each year more farmland is lost to sprawl development that also threatens the vitality of our downtowns. Vermont’s air quality suffers from increased vehicle usage and over reliance on fossil fuels, while alternative sources of clean, renewable energy sit right at our fingertips. And, our economic policies emphasize the number, not the quality or impact, of the jobs we create.
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