When Mayor Kathy Catazaro-Perry proposed reducing the City's income tax credit from a 100% credit to a 50% credit, and then later to a 65% credit, she didn't receive a lot of support from City Council's Finance Chairman, Donnie Peters.
When the issue was last defeated in September, Peters decried that "the credit reduction would have angered a third of the city’s voters.“Than you ruin your chances of ever passing an income tax increase,” (The Independent, September 5, 2012).
This 'third of the city's voters' Peters is referring to don't pay any Massillon income tax.
That's because Massillon is a city that has a 100% tax credit.
This means that if you live in Massillon, but work in another city, say Canton, you pay 100% of Canton's income tax, and pay no income tax in Massillon, where you live.
A 100% tax credit for taxes paid to another city is applied to your Massillon tax bill.
And, according to Peters, trying to reduce the tax credit from a 100% credit, means you "ruin your chances of ever passing an income tax increase."
The proposal last September was to lower the tax credit from 100% to 65%, meaning that people who work in another city, but live in Massillon, would have to pay roughly 1/3 of the income tax that everyone else pays.
Of course, according to Chief Counsel to the Stark County Prosecutor, John Kurtzman, this is unacceptable, as it takes food of our plates, and shoes off our feet.
A two thirds of 1% income tax for Massillon, where he lives, will vastly impact his ability to feed and clothe himself.
Fair enough.
So, in September, Finance Chairman Donnie Peters was unequivocally clear. A tax credit reduction means an income tax increase can never pass.
Again, fair enough.
The question then becomes, why is Peters now championing a .3% income tax increase, coupled with elimination of the 100% tax credit on the proposed .3% increase?
It appears, in the spirit of former Democratic Presidential Candidate John Kerry's infamous flip-flopping, that Donnie was "against it, before he was for it."
It just doesn't make any sense.
An increase in the income tax rate would have to be approved by a vote of the people.
And Peters clearly stated that, "the credit reduction would have angered a third of the city’s voters.“Than you ruin your chances of ever passing an income tax increase."
Yet he is now proposing the very thing he claimed would anger the voters.
According to Peters, it won't pass.
So why is he doing it?
What is really going on here?
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