No matter how you evaluate Texas’ business franchise tax, commonly called the “margins tax,” it fails the least-burdensome-tax test and fails to allow Texans the opportunity to flourish. This broad-based, gross-receipts-style margins tax is far more complex and unique among all taxes nationwide—with only Nevada having a similar gross-receipts-style tax. Eliminating this onerous tax would best serve Texans.

Businesses do not pay taxes; people do, in the form of higher prices, lower wages, and fewer jobs available. Given taxes exist to fund only the preservation of liberty, the least burdensome taxes should fund conservative budgets that grow, if at all, by no more than population growth plus inflation.