Writing as the owner of a house that has been issued a tax credit from the Mississippi Institute of Archives and History, the elimination of the state income tax will remove all power of supervision from that office. By acceding to their requirements, we homeowners receive state tax credits. With no state tax, the credits will be meaningless, and owners of historic houses will have no reason except a sense of historic responsibility to preserve their houses’ historic condition. Guess how deeply that sense will be felt?

Most of us have no plaque from the Historic Register to lose, so the needs of the householders, or even their wishes, will face no economic loss from the state.

This being the 21st century, perhaps preserving nineteenth-century character is no longer important or desirable. So eliminating a tax poor people do not pay — or barely pay — and replacing it with a tax that will burden poor people in dramatically disproportionate ways will have the added benefit of eliminating one of the elements of the state’s special character and bringing us into the modern world (this is an ironic joke). Maybe the State Senate will see more clearly than the House.

Bill Gillmore

Columbus

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