We retired Tax Justice Blog in April 2017. For new content on issues related to tax justice, go to www.justtaxesblog.org
Ohio Governor John Kasich is expected to unveil his latest tax cut proposal soon and it doesn’t take a deep understanding of Ohio politics to know that the Governor’s plan will likely include large across the board income tax rate reductions. Last week he mentioned wanting to lower the top income tax rate to below 4 percent after persistently advocating in recent months for reducing the top rate to less than 5 percent (the current top income tax rate is 5.333 percent).
In anticipation of the governor’s latest proposal, Policy Matters Ohio (PMO) released a new report, using ITEP data,“Income-tax cut would favor well-to-do”, which shows the impact of an across the board income tax rate reduction that lowers the top income tax rate to just under 5 percent. The biggest beneficiaries of this proposal are by far the wealthiest Ohioans. In fact, 69 percent of the benefits go to Ohioans in the top 20 percent of the income distribution.
We often don’t get to talk about tax policy as it relates to pizza, but PMO finds “that the across-the-board cut in rates needed to [get the top rate to below 5 percent] may allow low-income Ohioans to buy a slice of pizza a year, on average. Middle-income Ohioans could purchase a cheap pizza maker. For the state’s most affluent taxpayers, on average it would cover round-trip airfare for two to Italy, with some money left over to pay the hotel bill and buy some real Italian pizza.”
If the Governor aggressively pushes getting the top rate below 4 percent the benefits to the wealthy will be even greater and could mean a second trip to Italy with a stop over in France to pick up a bottle of wine. Either way, reducing the top income tax rate below 4 or 5 percent would enhance the unfairness already apparent in Ohio’s tax structure and makes it more difficult for the state to fund necessary services.