The Arizona Free Enterprise Club

It seems every day more information emerges about the devastating impact the Washington DC financed ‘Invest in Ed’ initiative would have on Arizona taxpayers and small business owners.

Recently it was revealed that the proposed measure would repeal the automatic indexing of Arizona’s tax brackets – triggering a permanent and ever-growing tax increase on low and middle-income people and families.  This tax hike contradicts months of promises by the supporters of the measure that it would only raise taxes on the “rich.”

Now it has been confirmed that Arizona would have the 4^th Highest Small Business Tax Rate in the Country if this initiative is passed in November.

Jared Walczack, Senior Policy analyst at the Tax Foundation, confirmed to the Arizona Free Enterprise Club that a near doubling of Arizona’s income tax would vault Arizona to 4^th highest small business tax rate in the nation. “In most states, as with Arizona, the tax on pass-through income is just the personal income tax. If Arizona jumped to nine percent, it would now be fourth (in the country), behind California, Oregon and Minnesota for the highest rate.”

Arizona currently has the 38^th highest small business tax in the country, a ranking that makes our state attractive to entrepreneurs and small business owners.

Recent changes made by federal tax reform will only magnify the tax hit. Under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act passed in 2017, the State and Local Tax Deduction was capped, limiting how much a small business may deduct in Arizona income taxes. “Given the recent cap placed on the SALT deduction, the tax cost of such high rates (on small businesses) is higher than ever.” Walczack said.

Exacerbating the tax hit is the fact that the new higher tax rates would not apply to corporations. Publicly traded companies and Fortune 500 businesses will be taxed at half the rate (4.9%) than most small businesses, an unfair advantage that will grow over time.

Arizona taxpayers should reject this radical upheaval of our income tax system, and preserve the attractive tax climate in our state for small businesses.

Since the proposition to double Arizona’s income tax was unveiled in early May, proponents of the measure emphatically promised voters that the only people affected by the tax increase was the “rich.”

That promise has already expired. Last month after filing 270,000 signatures with the Secretary of State, it was revealed that the “Invest in Ed” initiative would eliminate the inflation indexing of our income tax brackets and reset every tax bracket to 2014 levels.  The primary purpose for indexing the income tax brackets for inflation was to shield low and middle-income taxpayers from the cost of living inflation tax that occurs over time.

The irreversible elimination of inflation indexing would result in everyone’s income taxes going up in Arizona – to the tune of $49 Million in the first year, a figure that will grow exponentially over time.

Even worse, there is no real opportunity to fix this problem.  If this measure is passed, the proposition would be voter protected, meaning that it cannot be changed by the legislature. Even if a ¾ majority vote of the legislature agreed to bring back inflation indexing, it would still be illegal since lowering taxes would not further the intent of the proposal.

As more analysis is being done on this initiative to make Arizona the 5^th highest income tax state in the country, the clearer it has become that the Washington DC Labor Unions that financed this measure cared little about making sure that all of their claims were even accurate.

But as the saying goes, “the devil is in the details,” and the proposed largest tax increase in our state’s history has a lot of hidden, unexpected, and negative consequences for the future of Arizona.