JACKSON — House Speaker Philip Gunn used an analogy involving goats and church tithing Monday to make the point that Mississippi would never lose money under a long-term proposal to phase out the state personal income tax.
Under a bill that has passed the House and awaits Senate debate, the personal income tax would be reduced a bit at a time, and only during years when state revenue increases at least 3 percent. Under the speediest scenario, the tax would disappear after 15 years. If the economy sputters, the phaseout would take longer.
“I think a lot of people have failed to understand it,” Gunn, R-Clinton, said Monday at a forum sponsored by the Capitol press corps and Mississippi State University’s Stennis Institute of Government.
Gunn, who is a Baptist church elder, compared the tax cut proposal to tithing at church.
“You give a tithe out of your increase. At least, that’s my understanding of scripture,” Gunn said.
“If you start the year and you’ve 10 goats and you end the year with 10 goats, you don’t give a tithe because you haven’t had any increase,” he said. “But if you start the year with 10 goats and you finish the year with 20 goats, according to scripture you give a tenth. So, you’re going to give one goat to the church. But you get to keep the other nine.”
Mississippi’s current budget is just over $6 billion, with about $1.7 billion coming from the state income tax.
Critics say eliminating the state income tax, even slowly, would hurt Mississippi’s ability to pay for schools, roads and other services. Among them is Nancy Loome, head of the Parents’ Campaign, a group that lobbies for public-school funding.
“It shows a complete disregard for the welfare of the people they were elected to serve,” Loome wrote in a mass email after the bill passed the House. “It demonstrates a ‘let them eat cake’ attitude as schools remain under-funded by $257 million, roads and bridges crumble, children remain in abusive homes due to too few social workers at the Department of Human Services, Mississippians with mental illnesses fend for themselves without proper care, and state services fall short in countless other ways that diminish the quality of life for Mississippians generally.”
Gunn unveiled the proposal last week, two days before it passed the House.
The Senate has passed a separate bill that would phase out the business franchise tax and a portion of the state income tax. The price tag on that plan is about $382 million. The Senate bill awaits House consideration.
Legislators have until late March to agree on a tax plan, or to kill the proposals that have been made.
Online:
■ House Bill 1629: bit.ly/1akYulr
■ Senate Bill 2839: bit.ly/1LERKdT .
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