AUGUSTA, Maine — The Maine House has approved a bill to reduce the state’s income tax rate to a flat 4 percent.
After a lengthy debate, representatives voted 74-71 Thursday to approve a Senate-amended bill calling for the reduction. It relies on revenue surpluses initially to pay for the reduction.
The bill calls for 20 percent of one-time surpluses that would normally go to the state’s “rainy day” fund to instead pay for the income tax cuts.
Opponents said the bill diverts to income tax cuts money that should be going to municipalities in the form of revenue sharing and school funding. They said that shifts costs to property taxpayers.
Supporters said it lowers income taxes only after the state’s other obligations are met.
This is a big deal. Way to go, may help keep the wealthier folks from fleeing to NH or Florida. They would prefer it, too.
Wow this is the stupidest thing yet! We’re broke and you cut taxes????
Robbing Peter to pay Paul. This manuever is nothing more than a Wall St. Ponzi scheme. And wait until we all get our property tax bills next November. Screwed just in time for Thanksgiving and Christmas.
You nailed it, Mike. I hope everyone remembers this come November. Just another way for the rich to get richer, thanks to your Republican representatives.
why would they reduce Income taxes, allowing Mainers to control the spending related to the increase of their take home wage, when history shows the positive results of granting the Democrats more of our incomes to spend as they see fit?
Perhaps I won’t have to move my business to NH after all!
cutting taxes is nice. ware are the needed moneys going to come from, raising property tax and sals tax?
depends on how much sailing you personally do in the next year..sorry, I couldn’t help it. But you are right, can’t wait to see my property tax this fall.
Great News! The best way to kill a tumor is to cut off its blood supply.
Flat rate taxes are regressive, meaning they tax the middle and lower income classes more than the more affluent. Reducing the overall state revenue income will likely reduce the aid to towns, putting addtional burden on homeowners. And because real estate tax is generally flat rate, again the middle and lower income classes bear the largest burden. The average Mainer is getting hammered. This includes the average Tea Party and the average Repubican and the average conservative. Wake up, folks.
Why is a flat rate tax for everyone a bad thing? It’s fair!! Why should those who have made better decisions in life (like getting an education or working harder) be taxed at a higher rate because they make more money? What is fair in that? Isn’t it more fair for everyone to pay the same tax rate, irregardless of how much money they make?! It has been proven is practice that lowering taxes increases tax revenue, while raising taxes does just the opposite. If Maine would stop handing out so much public assistance, which makes people lazy, then maybe the state wouldn’t be so strapped for cash – and maybe those lazy people who are looking for a free ride will stop coming to Maine too!!
1. Why? Because of the many, many people like Mitt Romney…those who find themselves standing on 3rd base and then think they must have hit a triple. Education and hard work are simply not enough to bring someone out of the middle class into affluence. Is it so difficult to look at history and see that the affluent have always tried to enrich themselves at the expense of others?
2. Fairness? Come on. Justice hopefully… but please don’t evoke fairness in any social context unless you can explain a child dying of starvation in Kansas City or Detroit or Rhodesia then find a rationale for the death of Lincoln or JFK or the Unknown Soldier and then promote fairness to the 9/11 families or any murder victim’s survivors. Fairness is a sophmoric argument.
3. Then there is the big lie that you say “has been proven [in] practice:” its called the Laffer Curve (lowering tax rate raises revenues, etc.). Not proven for affluent taxpayers unless the progressive tax rate has already reached maximum revenue…that is the affluent no longer have initiative to make money because any extra profit is lost to taxes. The tax rate is nowhere near that level but the affluent continue to use the argument to disingenously (guess what?…yup…) enrich themselves.
The flat rate income tax is just one more way to squeeze the middle and lower income brackets.The revenue has to come from somewhere and it looks like property tax will go up along with sales tax unless we can get a tree tax to defer it,or we could all run for a seat in augusta and have reduced taxes and the best paying part time job there is. The 4% looks a lot better to the higher end of the scale then the lower end.