If you asked 100 people what’s best for South Carolina, you’d likely get 100 different responses. So when lawmakers set about the difficult task of implementing tax reform, it’s a safe assumption that they have been approached — if not bombarded — by hundreds of ideas on what’s best for our state. They have the difficult responsibility of evaluating all perspectives and determining the best action.

As we look to provide tax relief in one area, we must be sure we don’t merely shift those costs, unintentionally, onto other citizens and businesses.

A plan to rely solely on an increased state sales tax to provide relief for homeowners is a sure-fire way to create a system of winners and losers in South Carolina. And the unintended result will be that our business community will become even less competitive. Long-term, that poses negative consequences for all of us, as less-competitive businesses mean fewer new jobs and less economic growth.

According to a recent study by Columbia-based Miley, Gallo & Associates, a 2-cent increase in the state sales tax, while generating an estimated $1.17 billion in additional revenue for the state, would result in the business sector paying an estimated $490 million more in state sales tax without receiving any property tax relief in the process. South Carolina industrial businesses already pay the highest property tax rate in the country, and commercial businesses pay the seventh-highest property tax rate in the country.

It’s all too easy to place the additional burden on businesses because people think that businesses just will pass along that additional cost to consumers. But it’s not as simple as that.

Significant work is under way in the state to raise awareness about the need to elevate our competitiveness by raising per-capita income, developing and sustaining a viable workforce, increasing productivity and entrepreneurial development and, above all, ensuring that our laws and regulations encourage business growth.

While the shift in relative tax burden on the business sector is substantial at the state level, the impact on local communities and their competitiveness could be even more damaging. Because the relative share of assessed value varies across counties, the local impact also would vary. Under the 2-cent state sales tax increase proposal, relative taxes on commercial/rental property in some counties would not be especially dramatic. However, in Charleston County, for example, it would increase by 33 percent, to a whopping 52 percent.

Furthermore, relying on state sales taxes to make up revenue lost from property tax relief sends a message of imprudent financial management to the outside world. Raising the state sales tax to 7 percent would make South Carolina’s state sales tax equal to the highest in the nation. A heavier reliance on consumption-based revenue sources also would make the system more volatile, particularly in economic downturns. And raising state sales taxes alone would substantially erode our state’s competitive position with our immediate neighbors, North Carolina and Georgia, whose state sales tax rates are 4.5 percent and 4 percent, respectively.

A combination of other approaches would more readily facilitate fairness, stability and predictability in the tax system and support a competitive business environment conducive to growth and new investment. They include:

• Income-based property tax relief that benefits those who need it most. The state Chamber of Commerce supports a more modest 1 percentage point increase in the state sales tax to finance tax relief.

• Deferral of property tax debt until property changes hands for financially compromised taxpayers who might not otherwise qualify for relief.

• Mandated quarterly or semi-annual payment schedules for county property taxes to avoid hardship-producing, lump-sum payments due at the end of the year.

• Reassessments conducted on a more frequent, strict rotation — preferably every three years — with no extensions, and to strictly limit revenue growth in a year of reassessment.

• Caps on local government taxes so that annual revenue does not exceed population growth plus personal income growth, allowing exception by majority referendum.

• A streamlined state sales tax proposal that dedicates additional new revenues to education in order to reduce the pressure to raise millages for schools.

• Establishment of a tax study commission to examine ramifications of proposed changes in tax policy.

Perhaps the most compelling argument against disproportionate dependence on state sales tax comes down the road, should additional revenues be needed from a severely reduced tax base. Lawmakers would be forced to raise property taxes on the remaining property taxpayers, accelerating and perpetuating a cycle of noncompetitiveness.

If we pass a solution that does not look at the long-term effects on the economy, we will only revisit this same debate within a few years. Nobody wants that.

The business community pays the majority of all taxes in the state. Any reforms to the tax system must be fair and equitable to all taxpayers.

Mr. Gower is vice president of the southern region for Progress Energy, which provides electric service in the Pee Dee. He also is chairman of the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce. He lives in Florence.