As new fiscal year begins, more tax cuts loom on the horizon 

It’s July 1, and North Carolina legislators are nearing the final steps of approving a budget without another round of income tax cuts.

Last year, the approved budget included reductions to personal and corporate income tax rates that will phase in automatically over the next decade, with the corporate income tax landing at zero in 2030. And North Carolina is on track to experience more losses to our collective capacity to provide a sound, basic education, safe, affordable housing, and quality health care.

These tax cuts will happen unless the General Assembly takes action to repeal the schedule during one of its upcoming legislative sessions. Without action to repeal, the 2021 legislators will have constrained the ability of future legislators to respond to the challenges and opportunities that may arise in the next decade.

This is why it is so critical that each year we demand that our legislators revisit this decision. We must make clear what we as a state are giving up so that our resources can instead go to multi-state corporations and the wealthy.

In 2023, the budget will be reduced by $1.5 billion due to the tax changes passed last year. This is roughly equivalent to the entire budget for the NC Community College System. This amount is also equivalent to the state’s constitutional requirement under Leandro to fully fund a sound, basic education for every child. This amount could make North Carolina public universities free as far as practicable to all students based on the current rate of resident tuition collected.

Overtime, these automatic tax cuts will deepen the hole that we find our state in.  That is why it is even more important that legislators take the prudent step of stopping to dig the hole that we must find our way out of going forward.

Lawmakers need to halt the growing difference between the resources we have and the cost of meeting our state’s needs so North Carolina can provide what our people need to access housing and health care and make sure our communities have infrastructure, transportation, and safe drinking water.

This is why we will demand each year that legislators repeal these automatic tax cuts and choose instead to ensure that every person and every community has what it needs to thrive.