Kotek says taxes too high on rich (Multnomah tax)

By Taxpayers Association of Oregon
OregonWatchdog.com

Oregon Governor Tina Kotek said that the Multnomah County Income Tax (yes, Multnomah has their own Income tax) to pay for pre-school is too high.  Kotek said the tax is driving Oregon’s top taxpayers out-of-the-state.

Willamette Week reports, “In a letter sent June 10, Gov. Tina Kotek urged Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson to consider easing the tax burden on some of the county’s highest earners by restructuring the Preschool for All tax. The letter comes amid growing dissatisfaction from some of Portland’s top earners around the levy, a marginal income tax (1.5% of income over $200,000 for joint filers, and another 1.5% on income over $400,000 for joint filers). The ballot measure, passed in 2020, was intended to increase preschool capacity across the county. But in her letter to Vega Pederson, Kotek outlined a trend she saw as “unsustainable” in the county. Multnomah County’s high income earners shoulder the second-highest income tax rate nationwide, at 13.9%, she wrote. She added that the Preschool for All tax seemed to be discouraging these top earners from calling Portland—and Multnomah County—home.“I am troubled by the overall decline in the total number of taxpayers filing for the PFA tax, a drop of more than 1,700 total filers since 2021,” (read more here).

We would like to remind the audience that the Taxpayers Association of Oregon was one of the * only * organizations to fight the creation of the Multnomah County Income in 2020 at the ballot and that we specifically warned in the voter pamphlet argument against the tax that this would drive away higher income earners and be a disaster.

We were right — and now the our economy is wrong.

The post Kotek says taxes too high on rich (Multnomah tax) first appeared on Oregon Catalyst.