April 14, 2010
Santa Fe - A new report finds 99 percent of New Mexicans received some tax relief in 2009, leading some analysts to wonder where Tea Party activists' claims of tax tyranny are coming from. Tax Day protests are planned in New Mexico and around the country Thursday, April 15. Analysts say the common claim associated with the group - that the Obama administration is raising taxes as part of a socialist agenda - doesn't square with reality.
Gerry Bradley is a research director for New Mexico Voices for Children, which does tax policy work through its Fiscal Policy Project. He says the fact is that 99 percent of New Mexicans have actually received tax cuts through last year's stimulus package, "Just take the middle 20 percent of the taxpayers in New Mexico. They're getting an average tax cut of about $650 dollars a year. So, it's a significant amount of tax relief." Bradley says nearly every working New Mexican received some benefit on their 2009 income taxes, with the overall average amount being about a thousand dollars. The figures on tax relief in the stimulus package come from a new report by Citizens for Tax Justice, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.
Bradley says many economists agree that the administration took steps that were necessary given the economic situation, "Possibly what the Tea Party people don't understand is that in a recession, it's a good thing to increase government spending and cut taxes on consumers. And the Obama administration has increased government expenditures and cut taxes."
Bradley points out that the study shows that New Mexicans across a wide spectrum of income levels received tax relief in 2009, from tax credits for low-income households to alternative minimum tax benefits for higher-income earners.
The report is available at http://www.ctj.org/obamastaxcuts.php