LePage’s $6.3B tax plan would cut taxes for corporations, adjust others
In his two-year, $6.3 billion proposed budget, released Friday, Gov. Paul LePage said reducing the income tax and adding sales taxes to certain goods and services that are now exempt would save taxpayers $300 million annually by 2019.
The income tax “is becoming an obsolete form of taxation,” the Bangor Daily News quoted LePage as saying during a press conference. He added that Maine is “not only not competitive nationally and internationally, we are not competitive in New England.”
Under LePage’s plan, the top corporate income tax rate would decrease to 6.75% from 8.93%.
The budget also flat-funds aid to local governments for one year before it completely eliminates that assistance in its second year. However, it also suggests new investments in nursing homes and services for the elderly and disabled.
This is the second time LePage has targeted cuts in the state income tax in a budget proposal, according to the newspaper. About $150 million in income taxes was cut from the 2011 budget, mostly by eliminating the tax for individuals earning less than $5,200 annually and cutting the top tax rate to 7.95% from 8.5%..
That $5,200 will be raised to $9,700 in 2016 under the proposed budget, meaning fewer of Maine’s poorest residents will not have to pay income tax, and while everyone will see tax decreases each year, a new tax bracket will mean the highest incomes will be taxed at a lower rather than middle incomes, the newspaper wrote.
By 2019, income from $9,700 to $50,000 will be assessed at a lower rate of 5.75%. Incomes from $50,000 to $175,000 will be taxed at a still-reduced rate of 6.5%. Income topping that level will be taxed at 5.75%.
Read more
Businesses push against sales tax hike proposal
Most Recent
Most Recent
Comments