On Wednesday, the Ohio House of Representatives passed a $900 million tax increase with a 55-44 vote on House Bill 318. Governor Strickland backs this tax increase, in fact he proposed it. After seeing his plan to use slots in Ohio for revenue go down by the Ohio Supreme Court’s rejection, the Governor started pushing this income tax increase. Taxpayers should not be fooled by the Governor’s attempts to try to pass this off as a "freezing" of the 2005 tax cuts, because the tax cuts have already been implemented. The Governor has been trying to pass off this tax increase as a freeze of the final phase of th 2005 tax cuts, when in actuality, the final phase in of the 21% income tax rate cut was put in place on January 1, 2009.
The Ohio legislature needs to be looking for ways to ratchet back its budget rather than seeking more taxpayer dollars. The Republican controlled Senate with a 21-12 majority has an opportunity to protect Ohio’s taxpayers. Taxpayers have already seen paychecks with a little more in them since January 1st when the witholding books were changed. If this retroactive tax increase gets passed they could be seeing a larger bill on tax day.
For Ohio’s economy that is already hurting, adding more tax burden to the backs of the citizens would be detrimental to recovery. Americans for Tax Reform urges a no vote on HB318.
See ATR’s press release urging a no vote from the Ohio Senate by clicking here.
Click here to see the ATR letter opposing this tax increase.