KICKER TAX ALERT!
TAX ALERT: HJR 23 TO RAID KICKER TAX REFUND
Update 3/28: The House Ag Committee is planning to do a procedural vote to send the Kicker theft bill HJR 23 to House Revenue (which is a requirement for all revenue raising bills). This means there will likely be no debate on the bill in the House AG committee. This also means that once the bill is sent to the Revenue Committee, it will be later in Session where hearings run quicker with limited public notice and limited public involvement. This is why citizens should speak out early on HJR 23 before it is put into stealth/ramrod mode and rushed through the process. By the way, the House Ag committee should let the bill die in Committee like all other bad bills.
Liberal lawmakers have scheduled a hearing for HJR 23 on April 4th which would steal part of the people’s Kicker income tax refund. Oregon over-collected income taxes by $3.5 billion dollars in the last budget cycle. Voters put in the Constitution a requirement that such surplus and over-collected taxes must be returned to taxpayers who paid it. HJR 23 is a terrible Kicker-theft measure that would refer to the public a ballot measure that would let lawmakers steal part of the Kicker for higher return taxpayers and dedicate it to drought projects (as if there’s no money for water drought projects to spare in Kotek’s $116 billion 2-year budget proposal).
Important! Sometimes lawmakers amend (change) a bill at the very last hour before a hearing making it impossible for citizens to know what is being changed. The debate may be over stealing (a) part of the kicker (b) stealing Kickers from targeted incomes (c) stealing the current kicker (d) stealing only hypothetical kicker’s in the future. None of this matters. Kicker theft is Kicker theft. We are against any theft of the Kicker refunds. Kicker money is surplus over-collected tax funds. Oregon already is the among the top #5 biggest spending state governments in America (per-capita). They have enough money.
Please call and email members of House Committee on Agriculture
Tell them to Vote No on HJR 23 and not to steal any part of the Kicker
Representative Ken Helm (chair) (503)-986-1427 [email protected]
Representative Annessa Hartman (503)-986-1440 [email protected]
Representative Mark Owens (503)-986-1460 [email protected]
Representative Court Boice (503)-986-1401 [email protected]
Representative Mark Gamba (503)-986-1441 [email protected]
Representative Bobby Levy (503)-986-1458 [email protected]
Representative Pam Marsh (503)-986-1405 [email protected]
Representative Susan McLain (503)-986-1429 [email protected]
Representative Anna Scharf (503)-986-1423 [email protected]
Note: Even though you do not live in the district of a particular lawmaker you’re calling, you have every right to testify on bills in the Committee like every other person does for every other bill.