Issue: Tax Reform

Committee breakthrough: Alabama House panel OKs General Fund budget, tax increases

By Carol Gundlach

An Alabama House budget committee Wednesday approved a set of tax increases worth approximately $130 million – and a General Fund (GF) budget that would cut $55 million from many core state services. The full House is set to consider the budget and many revenue measures Thursday.

The total revenue package falls far short of the amount needed to address the GF shortfall without cuts. Tax measures that cleared the House’s GF budget committee include:

  • a cigarette tax increase of 25 cents per pack;
  • an increase in the business privilege tax for large corporations, accompanied by a tax cut for small businesses; and
  • tax increases on automobile rentals and titles.

The House’s education budget committee Wednesday approved a one-time transfer of about $50 million from the Education Trust Fund (ETF) to the GF. The transfer would have to be repaid by 2018 and would come from revenues above next year’s ETF spending cap under the Rolling Reserve Act. The committee also OK’d a plan to shift some use tax revenues from the ETF to the GF starting in 2017.

Winners and losers under proposed GF budget

There were clear winners and losers in the GF committee’s budget. Major reforms of Medicaid and criminal justice system would receive the funds needed to move forward. Other major services – including courts, mental health and the Department of Human Resources (DHR) – would be funded at their 2015 GF levels.

Many other state services would fare far worse under the committee’s GF budget. The Department of Senior Services would be cut by $2.4 million, with most of that money coming from home-based services for seniors who otherwise might have to enter nursing homes. The Department of Youth Services would be cut by nearly 75 percent, and the Department of Archives and History by almost a fourth.

Before the second special session began this week, Alabama Arise requested public hearings on all revenue and budget bills. Representatives of Arise, Voices for Alabama’s Children, the Children First Foundation and several state agencies testified before the House committee Wednesday in favor of new GF revenue.

Arise state coordinator Kimble Forrister told lawmakers that more than 200 advocacy groups, churches, hospitals and other organizations had signed an open letter to the Legislaturecalling for $300 million in new tax revenue to prevent drastic cuts to health care, child care, public safety and other vital services. “Our most vulnerable people depend on General Fund agencies to help them take care of their families,” Forrister said.

Forrister testified in favor of the business privilege tax changes. He also told lawmakers that failing to increase the price of a pack of cigarettes by at least 10 percent may not result in reduced smoking and improved health benefits for Alabama.

Senate committee doesn’t approve combined reporting bill

Not all tax proposals made it out of committee Wednesday. The Senate’s ETF budget committee did not approve a bill to required “combined reporting” on state corporate income tax returns.

The bill’s sponsor – Sen. Linda Coleman, D-Birmingham – urged her fellow committee members to consider the consequences of “nickeling and diming” the average Alabamian while enabling many large corporations and businesses to do business in Alabama while paying few or no taxes here. Closing corporate tax loopholes could bring an additional $30 million to the ETF each year, Coleman estimated.

Sens. Jim McClendon, R-Springville, and Jabo Waggoner, R-Vestavia Hills, were among committee members who said they were concerned about combined reporting’s potential impact on businesses and industrial recruitment.

Combined reporting would treat corporations and their subsidiaries as one entity for tax purposes. Most states have adopted such laws, and “combined reporting states are well-represented among the most economically successful states in the country,” the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found.

By Carol Gundlach and M.J. Ellington, policy analysts. Posted Sept. 9, 2015.

What went well in 2015 — and the challenges that remain for Alabama

By Kimble Forrister

It’s over! But it’s not over yet. After approving a wholly inadequate General Fund budget that would jeopardize our state’s future, the Alabama Legislature ended the 2015 regular session Thursday. But Gov. Robert Bentley vetoed that budget, and he will call lawmakers back for a special session on the budget later this summer.

Arise members celebrated some big victories this year, but major challenges still remain. Here’s a quick review of how Arise issues fared:

Budgets and taxes: None of Bentley’s revenue bills passed. Without new revenue, vital services like Medicaid and public safety face devastating cuts that would hurt Alabama’s quality of life for years to come. Just a few examples:

  • Thousands of Alabamians would lose community-based mental health care services.
  • Medicaid would end coverage of crucial services like outpatient dialysis and prosthetics.
  • State prisons would be even more overcrowded and at greater risk of federal takeover.

But there was some good news, too. Lawmakers overwhelmingly approved a bill to save money and give Alabamians more choices in Medicaid long-term care services. The state will have a powerful new tool – a “tax expenditure report” – to determine if tax breaks are worth the cost. And a new prison reform law will help save money and reduce overcrowding – but it only takes effect if the state funds it.

Ending Alabama’s lifetime SNAP ban: Alabamians can celebrate a big win for second chances! The prison reform bill includes language ending the state’s lifetime SNAP and TANF eligibility bans for people with a past felony drug conviction. Thousands of people can regain SNAP eligibility on Jan. 30, 2016, if the prison reform law gets the money required for it to take effect.

Alabama Accountability Act: The Legislature approved major changes to the act. The new version allows more money that would have supported public education to go to private schools instead – but it also includes some of Arise’s recommendations for greater accountability and transparency.

Housing Trust Fund: A bill to fund affordable housing in Alabama encountered powerful opposition and did not emerge from committee. Supporters plan to meet with opponents to seek agreement before the 2016 session.

Payday and title lending reform: In a big win for consumers, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled the state Banking Department can create a single statewide database of payday loans. But much work remains in the drive for a 36 percent interest rate cap: No bills to regulate payday or auto title loans passed, but public pressure for reform continues to grow.

The regular session is over, but Arise’s work continues. Stay tuned for updates as we prepare for this summer’s crucial debates over our state’s future. Together, we can build a better Alabama for all!

By Kimble Forrister, executive director. Posted June 4, 2015. Updated June 12, 2015.

Alabama Accountability Act changes receive final legislative approval

By Carol Gundlach

A bill that would expand tax credits under the Alabama Accountability Act (AAA) received final legislative approval Wednesday and went to Gov. Robert Bentley. SB 71, sponsored by Senate President Pro Tem Del Marsh, R-Anniston, is not the total repeal that Arise supported. But the bill would make significant improvements to the existing law (including some that Arise recommended), even as it allows more money that would have supported public education to go to private schools instead. Here are six changes to the AAA under SB 71:

(1) More tax credits would be available. Businesses and individuals can get tax credits for donations to organizations that grant scholarships to help eligible students attend private schools under the AAA. The original law capped the total amount of such credits at $25 million a year, but SB 71 would raise the cap to $30 million. The bill also would raise the current $7,500 annual limit on scholarship tax credits for individuals to $50,000 and let taxpayers claim credits against their 2014 taxes for donations made in 2015.

(2) Scholarship sizes would be limited. SB 71 would limit AAA scholarships to no more than $6,000 a year for elementary school students, $8,000 a year for middle school students and $10,000 a year for high school students.

(3) The income limit for scholarship eligibility would be lower. SB 71 would reduce the income eligibility limit for AAA scholarships from its prior level – 150 percent of the median household income, or nearly $65,000 in Alabama – to 185 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL), or about $44,000 for a family of four. Scholarship-granting organizations (SGOs) would have to re-evaluate students’ eligibility every other year. Students with existing scholarships could continue to receive them as long as their family income is no more than 275 percent FPL, or nearly $67,000 for a family of four.

(4) The definition of “failing school” would change. Another big difference under SB 71 is a change in the AAA’s definition of “failing school.” The bill would deem a public school to be “failing” if it is “listed in the lowest 6 percent of public K-12 schools based on the state standardized assessment in reading and math” or if the state school superintendent designates it as one. Schools that serve students with special needs are excluded from the act’s definition of “failing” schools. Students zoned for “failing” schools would have first priority for AAA scholarships until July 31 of each year, when any remaining scholarship money could go to eligible students living anywhere in Alabama.

(5) Participating schools and groups that grant AAA scholarships would face additional requirements. SB 71 would require SGOs to report quarterly on how many scholarships they give, as well as how many of them go to students who were zoned for “failing” schools or who already attended private schools. Participating schools now would have to give state achievement tests, be accredited within three years and disclose tuition rates online before each semester begins. The bill also would require an independent comparison of the test scores of students participating in the AAA scholarship program and similar students in public schools. A SGO now could be audited by the Alabama Department of Revenue (ADOR), and the ADOR would have the authority to bar a SGO or private school from participating in the tax credit scholarship program. All required annual and quarterly SGO reports would have to be made available to the public on the ADOR’s website.

(6) Unspent scholarship money must be returned to public education. SGOs would have to use any scholarship funds on hand at the start of a calendar year by the end of the following school year. Any such money not spent on AAA scholarships by then would go to the state Department of Education to help support “underperforming” schools.

By Carol Gundlach, policy analyst. Posted June 4, 2015.

Alabama needs a lasting solution to its General Fund shortfall

By Carol Gundlach

Taxes pay for important things. Services like education, health care and public safety are the backbone of economic growth, and tax dollars support them. Alabama has a long, sad history of not raising enough revenue to fund these vital services adequately, and it’s all led to this: a looming 2016 budget shortfall that could undermine our state’s future for years to come.

With just four meeting days left in the Alabama Legislature’s 2015 regular session, lawmakers still have not passed a General Fund (GF) budget to fund essential services like Medicaid, child welfare and mental health care. Alabama must have new revenue to pay its bills and meet its obligations to future generations.

Deep cuts could do real damage to Alabama’s future

Unlike most states, Alabama has two major budgets: the Education Trust Fund (ETF), which supports services related to K-12 and higher education, and the GF, which supports everything else. Taxes that grow with the economy, like individual income and sales taxes, are earmarked (or set aside) for the ETF, while the GF relies on a hodgepodge of other revenue sources, most of which grow slowly even in good times. That leaves the GF with a structural deficit, meaning revenue growth is not strong enough to keep pace with ordinary cost growth.

Alabama’s temporary solutions to the GF’s persistent shortfall are gone. Faced with flat or declining tax revenues, the GF has relied on one-time money in 11 of the last 12 years. The sources have varied widely: state property sales, legal settlements, loans from the Alabama Trust Fund, transfers from the state’s road and bridge fund, and federal stimulus money under the Recovery Act. But none of that one-time revenue is available anymore, and that leaves the Legislature facing a 2016 shortfall estimated to be between $250 million and $300 million.

Gov. Robert Bentley has proposed addressing the shortfall with several tax measures, including higher state taxes on cigarettes and automobiles and the closure of some corporate income tax loopholes. But only one of the bills has escaped committee. Instead, the House proposed a different, and much smaller, package of tax increases. The bills have not yet received a floor vote and almost surely are dead for this session.

Without new revenue, the House and the Senate’s GF budget committee have approved a budget with deep cuts to core services like Medicaid, corrections and mental health care. The cuts would hurt Alabama’s economy and devastate our state’s quality of life for decades:

  • No more Medicaid coverage for services like outpatient dialysis, prosthetics and adult eyeglasses,
  • Cuts to community mental health services for thousands of Alabamians,
  • Loss of child care supports for tens of thousands of children,
  • Even more overcrowding in a state prison system already operating at nearly twice its designed capacity,
  • Longer trial delays as hundreds of court employees are laid off,
  • Elimination of vital public safety and forensics services, and
  • Closure of 25 National Guard armories and most state parks.

Legislators have floated ideas to try to solve the GF shortfall without tax increases in recent weeks. While the proposals may sound plausible on the surface, none of them would be adequate to address the current funding crisis.

Taking more money from education is not the answer for Alabama

The Legislature recently placed a cap (called the Rolling Reserve) on the amount of education revenue that can be appropriated each year. As a result, the ETF has a surplus that cannot be spent on everyday school operations under current law.

If this is the case, some argue, what would be wrong with using that “excess” education money to plug the GF hole? Several proposals this year seek to do just that, by “un-earmarking” taxes dedicated to education, by combining the ETF and GF budgets, or by transferring a portion of the money above the Rolling Reserve cap to the GF.

But these proposals don’t account for one big fact: Alabama’s education funding is still nowhere close to recovering from massive cuts during and after the Great Recession. The 2016 ETF budget will give K-12 schools only 92 percent as much money as they received in 2008, despite higher costs and population growth.

Alabama’s recent education cuts are among the country’s worst. The state’s per-pupil K-12 spending in 2015 was 18 percent lower than in 2008, the second worst decline in the nation, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP). Alabama’s per-student higher education cuts from 2008 to 2016 are also the nation’s second worst, the CBPP found.

The lingering cuts point to a need for Alabama to revise the Rolling Reserve Act to make more ETF revenues available to schools. The Legislature still could pass a bill sponsored by Rep. Bill Poole, R-Tuscaloosa, to allow a share of the excess ETF money to be spent for critical school construction and repair needs. Even in the face of the GF’s funding woes, taking desperately needed funding from our schools is not the right way to build a stronger Alabama.

State lottery, casinos at dog tracks would not solve Alabama’s 2016 shortfall

Some legislators have proposed an expansion of gambling as a way to raise GF revenue. Proposals include creating a state lottery and developing casinos at locations already approved as dog tracks.

Regardless of one’s feelings about those proposals (on which ACPP takes no position), they would not solve the 2016 budget crisis. Any legislative measure to expand gambling would require a statewide vote on a constitutional amendment. Even if voters approve, it would be a year before regulatory structures could be put in place to allow revenue to begin coming to the state. That would be much too late to prevent devastating cuts in 2016.

A state gambling compact with the Poarch Band of Creek Indians (along with a $250 million loan that the tribe has offered) could fill the 2016 shortfall. But the loan would be one-time money and therefore not a long-term answer for the GF’s structural deficit. Bentley also has said he does not intend to negotiate a compact before legislators approve new tax revenue.

Most states reported declines in gambling revenue between 2013 and 2014, a recent study by the Rockefeller Institute found. Total state gambling revenue nationwide increased by less than 1 percent in that time, according to the study. Adjusted for inflation, revenues actually declined.

Alabama needs new tax revenue to pay for vital services

Ultimately, the surest way to solve Alabama’s GF shortfall and invest in our state’s future is with responsible tax increases, sufficient to meet our needs. Bentley’s proposals – including raising the cigarette tax and taxing automobiles at the same 4 percent rate that our state applies to food and clothing – would be a good start toward ensuring long-term funding for Medicaid, corrections, child care and other important services.

Alabama is at a crossroads. The choices that our state makes this year will help determine what kind of state our children and grandchildren will inherit. Do we raise new revenue to protect vital services like health care and public safety? Or do we erode our state’s quality of life with savage cuts to those services? Whether in the remaining days of the regular session or (more likely) in a special session, it’s up to the Legislature to decide which direction Alabama takes.

By Carol Gundlach, policy analyst. Posted May 29, 2015.

Alabama Legislature passes bill to require annual report on state tax breaks

By Carol Gundlach

Alabamians could learn far more about the cost and effectiveness of state tax breaks under a bill that the Legislature passed without a single “no” vote. SB 119, sponsored by Sen. Bill Hightower, R-Mobile, passed 92-0 in the House on Tuesday and 30-0 in the Senate in March. The Senate agreed with the House’s changes Thursday, and the bill awaits Gov. Robert Bentley’s signature.

SB 119 would require the Legislative Fiscal Office to provide an annual “tax expenditure” report to legislative budget committees. This report would list all tax exclusions, exemptions, deductions, credits and special rates and estimate the amount of revenue that the state forgoes as a result of these tax breaks. Alabama was one of only seven states with no such report as of 2011, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. SB 119 also requires biannual public hearings on tax breaks.

ACPP executive director Kimble Forrister praised lawmakers’ approval of the bill. “For years, ACPP has called for greater transparency and accountability when tax breaks are given by the Legislature,” Forrister said. “SB 119 will ensure that legislators and the public know how much revenue is diverted by these tax breaks. We appreciate Sen. Hightower’s leadership in bringing this bill and urge the governor to sign it.”

Tax expenditures are provisions in state or federal tax codes that reduce the amount of tax owed by households or corporations. These tax breaks are sometimes called “spending through the tax code” because, like spending, they are intended to achieve policy goals. But tax expenditures often get far less scrutiny than spending does.

States commonly give tax breaks to individuals by exempting certain income from being taxed, by allowing some expenses to be deducted from income, or by charging different tax rates on different types and levels of income. Examples of individual tax breaks include the personal exemption and the mortgage interest deduction.

Corporate tax breaks often are billed as a way to help recruit industry into a state or keep businesses from relocating to another state. These breaks can include reduced sales, income, property or employer taxes.

Tax breaks can become hotly debated public issues, like when Alabama is in a bidding war with other states for big projects like the Boeing or Mercedes plants. But often, tax breaks are issued automatically and receive little public, or even legislative, attention. Many of these tax breaks are tilted toward higher-income taxpayers, because they are more likely to owe taxes and to invest in deduction-eligible projects.

The Legislature has created hundreds of tax breaks in recent decades, and 2015 has been no different. Lawmakers this year have approved several new tax incentives to reduce taxes for businesses that hire military veterans, locate in rural or high-poverty communities, create new jobs, or reinvest in existing industries.

Some of Alabama’s tax breaks may create new jobs and help reduce poverty, while others may not. An annual tax expenditure report would help shed light on these breaks and allow the public and lawmakers to decide whether the investment has been worth the cost.

Studies have found that tax breaks have little influence on individual or corporate decisions and that the breaks often are not a better public investment than the schools, health care, public safety or other vital services that the money could have paid for instead. SB 119 would help Alabamians evaluate how much revenue the state forgoes through its tax code and whether these breaks are good for our state.

By Carol Gundlach, policy analyst. Posted May 21, 2015.

Alabama would suffer for years to come under no-new-revenue General Fund budget

By Carol Gundlach

Alabamians’ quality of life would suffer for years to come if the no-new-revenue General Fund (GF) budget that the House’s GF budget committee approved Thursday becomes reality. The House is expected to vote Tuesday on the budget, which would slash vital services like health care, child care and public safety. The state’s promising new reforms of Medicaid and prisons would end, and services for low-income children could face devastating cuts.

With the Legislature’s regular session nearing an end, talk of one or more special sessions is running rampant, and the threat of deep cuts to services that make our state a better place to live and work is real. Here is a look at a few of the ways Alabamians would feel the cuts in their everyday lives:

Proposed budget cuts would end new Medicaid reforms and impose severe cuts to other health care programs. The proposed GF budget would reduce Medicaid funding by 5 percent. While the Medicaid agency has not specified what services would be reduced or eliminated, State Health Officer Don Williamson has said the cut would force Medicaid to abandon its new regional care organization model, designed to keep patients healthier while cutting costs.

Williamson said last month that a smaller 3 percent cut would force the agency to end coverage of outpatient dialysis, forcing kidney patients to be admitted to the hospital to receive routine dialysis. Medicaid also would have to eliminate hospice care coverage and stop paying for adult eyeglasses and prosthetics.

In addition, Medicaid would reduce reimbursement payments to doctors, which could mean fewer physicians treating Medicaid patients. Medicaid also would contract with a single provider of prescription services, likely forcing many local, independent pharmacies to close.

The committee’s budget would cut home health services for the elderly and disabled by more than 9 percent. Patients losing these services could be forced to enter much more expensive nursing homes, reducing patients’ independence and increasing costs to the struggling Medicaid program. Funding for life-saving HIV and AIDS medications also would be cut by 50 percent.

Proposed budget cuts would reduce community mental health services. In recent years, the Department of Mental Health responded to budget cuts by closing nearly every public mental health hospital. Many advocates applauded the new focus on less restrictive (and less expensive) community-based services.

But the 2016 GF budget proposal would reduce funding for those very services by 5 percent. Patients unable to receive mental health treatment may be forced into private hospitals, or they may end up incarcerated in local jails without access to needed counseling and medications.

Proposed budget cuts would devastate social services for low-income families and children. Together, the committee’s GF budget and the education budget awaiting House committee approval would reduce Department of Human Resources (DHR) funding by 14 percent.

DHR commissioner Nancy Buckner last month outlined draconian service reductions in the event of major budget cuts. These could include the elimination of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, which provides cash assistance and services for extremely low-income families, including more than 30,000 children.

Other cuts could include major reductions in child care assistance for thousands of working families, the elimination of adult day care services, and the elimination of child support collection services for more than 200,000 Alabama families. Because much state DHR funding is matched by federal money, the agency’s total cuts would be much larger than the lost state dollars alone.

The House committee budget would eliminate GF support for the Department of Youth Services (DYS), which provides supervision and services for youthful offenders and their families. The total reduction would be 12 percent, accounting for DYS funds in the education budget.

Like mental health, DYS has moved in recent years toward less expensive and more appropriate community services and has closed expensive residential beds for low-risk offenders. These community services would be cut under the proposed GF budget. With fewer residential beds, juvenile offenders would be left unsupervised or incarcerated in county facilities instead.

Alabama’s network of Community Action Agencies provides nutrition, housing, Head Start and energy assistance services to low-income people. The proposed GF budget would cut state funding for these services by 50 percent.

Proposed budget cuts would end prison reform and could risk a federal takeover of the state prison system. The committee’s GF budget would make devastating cuts to Alabama’s civil and criminal justice system, ensuring that the recently passed (and highly praised) prison reform legislation could not be implemented.

The state’s already reeling trial courts would face a 16 percent cut under the budget, leading to hundreds of layoffs. The budget also would cut juvenile probation services by nearly 40 percent and forensic sciences by 22 percent. These cuts could force courts to close at least two days a week, delay trials and hearings, and delay criminal cases that require DNA and other forensic evidence. The deep cuts also would result in more unsupervised juvenile offenders even as youth services are slashed.

Alabama’s prison system, already operating at nearly twice its designed capacity, would absorb a 5 percent cut under the proposed budget, increasing the risk of federal intervention. The budget also includes major cuts for the very programs needed for prison reform to succeed. The state’s drug court program would be cut nearly 40 percent. Community corrections, the alternative to imprisonment, would be cut by half. And parole services, essential for reducing recidivism, would be reduced by 14 percent.

Bentley has said he plans to sign the prison reforms that the Legislature passed last week into law. But before any of those reforms can be implemented, the governor’s office must certify that the Department of Corrections and the Board of Pardons and Paroles have enough money to move ahead with the changes. The proposed GF budget would derail prison reform by making this certification impossible.

Our state needs new revenue to avoid these cuts. Overall, the committee’s $1.64 billion GF budget falls more than $200 million short of the amount needed to prevent deep service cuts and invest in reforms. Lawmakers thus far have not considered Gov. Robert Bentley’s proposals to raise revenue and avoid those cuts, including increasing the state cigarette tax and automobile sales tax. Other tax bills that won House committee approval last week have stalled.

Alabama faces an important choice that will help determine what kind of state our children and grandchildren will inherit. Do we raise new revenue to protect vital services like health care and public safety? Or do we erode our state’s quality of life with devastating cuts to those services? The House committee’s budget would side with the latter option, and Alabama would suffer the consequences of that choice for years to come.

By Carol Gundlach, policy analyst. Posted May 15, 2015.

Testimony from Arise’s Kimble Forrister on cigarette tax increase

By Kimble Forrister

Arise’s Kimble Forrister testified before the House’s General Fund budget committee Tuesday, May 5, 2015, about HB 572, which would increase Alabama’s cigarette tax by 25 cents per pack. The committee approved the bill along with several other tax measures. Here’s the full text of Forrister’s prepared remarks:

“Alabama Arise has changed its position on the cigarette tax. We used to oppose it because it was regressive, so an increase would fall heavily on low-income workers. This year, our board (including some former smokers) held a lengthy debate and decided the health benefits outweigh the other concerns. If we increase the cost per pack enough to discourage teens from starting to smoke, and give adults one more reason to quit, fewer children will suffer from secondhand smoke.

“Our concern with this bill is that the increase is only 25 cents a pack. Studies show that you need sticker shock to change behavior. A 10 percent increase in the cost of a pack – about 55 cents in Alabama – would reduce teen smoking by 5 percent to 15 percent. After the federal tax increase in 2009, low-income people paid 12 percent of the increased taxes but gained 46 percent of the improvement in health, measured by mortality.”

The Alabama Tax & Budget Handbook

By Alabama Arise

We’re all in this together. All of us – regardless of age, health, wealth, background or location – depend on a network of services from our local, state and national governments. From garbage collection to fire protection, from roads to schools, from public health to public safety, our tax dollars support the daily upkeep of our common good.

The 50 state governments are vital links in this network. It’s a solemn trust: Each state is responsible for ensuring the safety, general well-being and education of its people. And each state government carries out this responsibility in its own way.

As Alabamians, many of us studied our state government in fourth grade and learned a little more about it in other classes. But until we’re out making a living, paying taxes and voting, these lessons may seem disconnected from our everyday lives.

The Alabama Tax & Budget Handbook is designed to make that connection. The handbook breaks down state finances into basic functions that affect every taxpayer: What do our tax dollars pay for? How does state spending work? Where does the state get its money? It also looks at how those functions measure up – in relation to residents’ needs and abilities, as well as the performance of other states. And it offers ideas for making Alabama’s finances fairer, simpler, more adequate for meeting our needs, and more easily understood and visible to the public.

Testimony from Arise’s Kimble Forrister on ‘flat tax’ proposal

By Kimble Forrister

Arise’s Kimble Forrister testified before the state Senate’s education budget committee Wednesday, April 29, 2015, about SB 409. The bill would raise income taxes on the lowest-paid Alabamians but cut taxes for the top 1 percent by thousands of dollars on average. The committee carried the bill over at the sponsor’s request, but it could return later this year. Here’s the full text of Forrister’s prepared remarks:

“Alabama Arise believes that Alabama can’t move forward as long as we have an outdated, upside-down tax system. Several church bodies have passed resolutions calling for lower taxes for those who pay too much and higher taxes for those who pay too little. As it stands now, middle-income workers pay twice the share of income paid by the top 1 percent in state and local taxes.

“Alabama Arise worked closely with Rep. John Knight and Gov. Bob Riley in 2006 to raise Alabama’s income tax threshold for a family of four from $4,600 (worst in the nation) to $12,600 (now worst in the nation again). No state would tax that family except Alabama. In fact, very few states still tax workers whose income is below the poverty line.

“Under SB 409 as written, millionaires get a great deal: a tax cut of nearly $4,000 on average. At the lower end, Alabama families would pay income tax on their first $100 of income. No other state does this. In fact, every other state with a flat tax has created some mechanism to exempt families at $12,600 from the income tax.

“One such approach is Colorado’s, where a 4.25 percent flat tax is imposed on federal taxable income, not adjusted gross income (AGI). It’s just as simple as SB 409, but far more family-friendly. Instead of paying 2.75 percent of line 37, you’d pay 4.25 percent of line 43: Taxable Income. The result would be lower taxes at all income levels, on average, and the overall effect would be more revenue-neutral than SB 409 is now.

“Another approach is Pennsylvania’s, where the flat tax is softened by a tax forgiveness provision that applies only to lower-income families. Those who qualify would pay less, giving a break to low-income people and retirees.

“Finally, there’s the possibility of a state Earned Income Tax Credit, which half of the states now have. If we designed one at 10 percent of the federal EITC, it would reduce total revenue by $137 million, and the bottom quintile would no longer be the only quintile that would pay more under SB 409. Thank you for your time.”

‘Flat tax’ plan could raise income taxes on lowest-paid Alabamians

By Chris Sanders

Alabamians struggling to make ends meet could have to pay state income tax on the first $100 they earn under a new “flat tax” proposal that the Senate’s education budget committee considered Wednesday. SB 409 would eliminate all personal exemptions and standard deductions and require an 80 percent majority of both the state House and Senate to add new tax breaks.

Alabama’s upside-down tax system would become even more skewed without such breaks for low-income families. Under SB 409, Alabama would be the only state that shields no income at all from tax. The state’s current income tax threshold – the minimum income level where one begins to pay income tax – is already the nation’s worst: just $12,600 for a family of four.

Overall, Alabamians with low and moderate incomes pay twice the share of their incomes in state and local taxes that the top 1 percent do. Requiring families who live in deep poverty to pay income tax would make that gap even larger.

Low-income workers would pay higher taxes under SB 409, while the richest Alabamians would get a tax cut. Families with incomes below $18,000 a year would pay an additional $73 in income taxes on average, according to an analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), a nonpartisan research organization based in Washington, D.C. The top 1 percent, on the other hand, would get a tax cut of more than $3,800 on average, ITEP estimates.

More than half of Alabama families earning less than $18,000 a year would pay more in taxes under the plan, according to ITEP. By contrast, 90 percent of Alabamians earning $431,000 or more would get a tax break.

“Under SB 409 as written, millionaires get a great deal: a tax cut of nearly $4,000 on average,” Arise’s Kimble Forrister told senators Wednesday during a public hearing on the bill. “At the lower end, Alabama families would pay income tax on their first $100. No other state does this.”

SB 409 would replace Alabama’s nominally progressive income tax rates starting in 2017 with a single rate: 2.75 percent for individuals and 4.59 percent for corporations. The top rates now are 5 percent for individuals (on taxable income above $3,000) and 6.5 percent for corporations. The plan – sponsored by Sen. Bill Hightower, R-Mobile – would offset some of the revenue loss by ending the state’s federal income tax (FIT) deduction, which overwhelmingly benefits high earners.

The plan would end most state income tax breaks for individuals – but not for corporations. Individuals could claim a deduction only if it is for a charitable contribution or required by federal law, unless 80 percent of the Legislature approves a new deduction. But SB 409 would protect almost all corporate tax credits, deductions and exemptions. More than 80 percent of SB 409’s corporate tax cuts would benefit out-of-state corporations and stockholders, ITEP estimates.

The proposal also could cut funding for public schools significantly. The plan as written would reduce revenues by $146.5 million a year, the Legislative Fiscal Office estimates. That would pile on even more cuts to K-12 and higher education in Alabama, which has made some of the nation’s deepest K-12 and higher education cuts since the Great Recession. State education funding is still well below 2008 levels.

SB 409 is a proposed state constitutional amendment. It would require legislative approval this year and voter approval in 2016.

The Senate committee carried over the bill at Hightower’s request Wednesday, but it could return later this session. Hightower said he intends to address concerns with the plan by making changes to help protect low-income families and retirees and to avoid reducing education revenues. Read the Associated Press’ coverage for more details.

By Chris Sanders, communications director, and Carol Gundlach, policy analyst. Posted April 28, 2015. Updated April 29, 2015.