Kentucky: May 2009 Archives
Today a panel of economic experts is expected to unveil their estimate of
Instead of accepting spending cuts as the only option for dealing with the coming shortfall, this week “Kentucky Forward” was launched. This coalition of labor, social service, community, and religious organizations, united behind a set of progressive tax policy principles, called upon the Governor to call a special session and put progressive tax reform on the legislative agenda. ITEP's comments during the coalition's launch about the need for tax reform can be found here.
Stay tuned. Next week a special joint meeting of the House and Senate budget committees will hear two tax reform bills. One is largely modeled after the so called "fair tax" and would eliminate the state's income tax and replace the revenue with new sales taxes. The other is a comprehensive tax reform bill that would make the Commonwealth's income tax more progressive as well as broaden the sales tax base to include more services.
It's safe to assume that there will be a special legislative session in
he hasn't committed to calling back the legislature or decided what topic he would even select for a special session, but everyone knows a shortfall this large isn't going away without further action. So a flurry of proposals are being discussed from progressive income tax reform to increased gambling and even the so-called "fair tax."
The
infamous "fair tax" legislation, which proponents are pushing all over
the country, would eliminate corporate and individual income taxes,
replace the lost revenue with increased sales taxes on a wide range of
services, and eliminate most current sales tax exemptions. Before going
too far down this path,
In
A similar fate is expected in
