NEW: Groups Renew Call for Tax Fairness
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
On Tax Day 2012, as Rhode Islanders write the checks to pay their tax bills, Rhode Islanders for Tax Equity (RITE) is renewing the call for the Rhode Island General Assembly to pass tax fairness legislation and reminding hard-working, middle-class citizens that their hard-earned tax dollars are being used to finance massive tax breaks for Rhode Island’s wealthiest citizens. A day after Republicans blocked passage of the Buffet Rule bill in the U.S. Senate, RITE members say regular, middle-class Rhode Island taxpayers have had enough.
George Nee, President of the RI AFL-CIO and supporter of the RITE coalition, stated, “Democrats on the national level are doing the right thing by fighting for a bill that would make millionaires pay their fair share. Yet Republicans continue to put up roadblocks, even though over seventy percent of Americans support this bill. Locally, our tax fairness bill is supported by close to seventy percent of Rhode Islanders as well. Tax day is as good a time as any to highlight the growing income disparity between the wealthy and the shrinking middle class. For too long the wealthy have gotten breaks while working-class Rhode Islanders keep getting hit with more and more property and car taxes. It’s time the Democrats in the General Assembly stand up for working-class citizens and get behind this important piece of legislation.”
Sukie Ream, a labor and delivery room nurse at Women & Infants Hospital, stated, “It is time to repeal the tax cuts millionaires have received for six years in Rhode Island because the lack of revenue is starting to hurt the state’s largest private sector employer – the hospitals. Over the last few years Rhode Island has increasingly used monies to balance the budget that otherwise would have been provided to hospitals to fund uncompensated care. Moreover, with local aid evaporating some cities are feeling the pressure to tax hospitals. In a time when Rhode Islanders are suffering from crushing unemployment it makes no sense to saddle the knowledge economy with hidden taxes in order to balance state and local budgets.”
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTJoan Marois, a direct care support professional at Seven Hills Rhode Island, spoke about how the state has cut money to important programs while continuing tax breaks for the wealthy. “The cuts are unconscionable because they are being directed at and felt by the most vulnerable members of our community–the developmentally disabled. How the political leaders of our state can cut taxes on those most capable of paying–the highest income levels and corporations–while cutting services to the developmentally disabled is incomprehensible. Rhode Island's elected leaders have the ability to restore the personal dignity of the developmentally disabled and those who love them by choosing to take back failed tax cuts for millionaires and paying for these vital services.”
URI graduate student Danielle DiRocco stated, “The Buffett Rule is admirable and very much in line with what we are trying to do here in Rhode Island. Our current tax structure in Rhode Island disproportionately burdens those with the least ability to pay. When you combine all the state level taxes Rhode Islanders pay–sales, property, income and car taxes–the 20% of Rhode Islanders who are living on $18,000 a year or less pay over 11.9% of their annual income in taxes. For the top 1% of income earners, it's just 5.6%. On top of that, college tuitions are rising at an alarming rate, making a higher education unaffordale to many Rhode Island students. Our current tax structure is regressive, and deepens the divide between the haves and the have nots. I sincerely believe Rhode Island can do better.”
RITE supports legislation, sponsored by Representative Maria Cimini in the House (H-7729) and Senator Joshua Miller in the Senate (S-2622), that will increase the income tax rate from 5.99% to 9.99% on individuals making over $250,000 per year. The tax rate would go down 1 percent for each 1 percent reduction in the state's unemployment rate, until the rate returns to 5.99 percent.