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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Most Rural Voters Want to See Tax Hikes for Wealthy, Corporations

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Friday, July 9, 2021   

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- The latest poll by Americans for Tax Fairness finds rural voters overwhelmingly support the idea of corporations and the wealthy paying more taxes, or, as it's often put, "their fair share."

President Joe Biden's economic proposals include several tax-code changes for only the highest-income Americans, many of whom now pay little or no tax. It would raise income taxes on those making more than $400,000 a year, and update the capital gains and stock dividends tax for millionaires.

Bruno Showers, senior policy analyst at Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, said while tax policy can seem complex, it has profound effects on what government can do.

"That revenue can be used for public investments, like well-maintained roads and bridges, access to health care for their kids, good quality schools, rural broadband," Showers outlined. "Which, they desperately need."

According to the poll, 63% of rural voters support raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations in general, 59% support raising them on folks earning more than $400,000, and 55% support raising the corporate tax rate to 28%.

Showers added in addition to imbalances in federal tax policy, Arkansas also has a regressive state taxation system, meaning wealthy individuals and corporations pay a smaller percentage of their income in state and local taxes than low- and middle-income residents.

"Meanwhile, we continue to cut income taxes," Showers observed. "Which is one of the ways we have to make the wealthy pay their fair share."

He suggested one way to make Arkansas' tax code more fair would be to tax capital gains at the same rate as income. Currently, only half of capital gains are taxed in Arkansas, and anything over $10 million is excluded.

He also recommended, he said more aspirationally, the state raise the top income-tax rate and create new brackets for higher levels of income.


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