Legislator: Recently, the state's small-business association proposed a plan to allow small (as defined by law) retail establishments to deduct the cost of unsold inventory from their tax liability. The association's spokesperson emphasized that, since smaller businesses have less money with which to purchase inventory, the proposed measure would help those smaller retailers remain competitive with their larger counterparts. Nevertheless, in practical terms, fair enforcement of the plan would be infeasible, because ________.

(A) several new state employees would have to be hired to audit the new deductions
(B) it is not possible to distinguish unsold inventory from the store proprietors' personal purchases
(C) stores would have to repay the deducted amount of tax if they sold the inventory in question at a later date
(D) the threshold of sales below which a business legally qualifies legally as "small" was set by the state legislature in response to a different proposal
(E) small businesses are less likely than their larger counterparts to have computerized or otherwise automated inventory systems


OA B

Source: Manhattan Prep