Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt is advocating to get rid of the state’s 4.75 percent personal income tax. He uses the Republican-led states of Florida and Texas as examples of success when it comes to nixing the tax.
Note: There are currently nine states in the United States where citizens don’t pay personal income tax: Wyoming, Washington, Texas, South Dakota, Alaska, Nevada, Florida, Tennessee, and New Hampshire.
On the Fox Business show Varney & Co., Governor Stitt said he’s trying to use the state’s budget surplus (“the largest savings account in our state’s history”) to give back to Sooners. He said: “We want to get rid of income tax, get that to zero. We want to be the most business-friendly state in the country.”
Stitt realizes such an endeavor can’t happen overnight: “Over the next decade, you can put your state on the path to zero. And that’s my effort. That’s what I’m trying to get down through the legislature.”
Stitt is also trying to eliminate Oklahoma’s grocery tax. The Sooner state is one of 13 states that still impose sales tax on groceries.
Of those 13 states, ten — Arkansas, Illinois, Missouri, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, and Oklahoma — offer a lower tax rate for groceries than the general sales tax rate, or provide a tax credit to offset the sales tax on groceries. Alabama, Mississippi, and South Dakota tax groceries at the full state sales tax rate.
According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: “Sales taxes worsen income and racial inequalities. Low-income people pay much more of their income in sales taxes than higher-income people do because they must spend a very large share of their income to meet basic needs.”
At the end of the Fox Business interview (above), Varney & Co. host Stuart Varney warns Stitt, who is serving his second term as governor: “Watch out, Governor, you’re going to get an influx of New Yorkers.”
Varney films his show in New York City and owns a 1,100-acre estate in Upstate New York, where he has said he hopes to retire.
Note: New York state has nine income tax rates ranging from 4% to 10.9%: rates depend on your taxable income, adjusted gross income and filing status. And residents in New York City (and the city of Yonkers) pay an additional local income tax (rates range from 3.078% to 3.876%).
