by Cole Lauterbach
Voters in Arizona will have the chance to strike down the largest personal income tax cut in state history.
Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs notified Gov. Doug Ducey’s office Friday that her office certified a ballot initiative to appear on the November 2022 general election ballot. Designated as Proposition 307, the initiative needs a simple majority to vote “no” to strike down Senate Bill 1828. The law gradually flattens Arizona’s progressive income tax to 2.5%.
Save Our Schools Arizona celebrated the chance to strike down a law it estimated would cut $1 billion in annual state funding.
The ballot initiative is championed by Invest in Arizona, the Arizona Education Association and Stand for Children – an Oregon-based nonprofit with an office in Phoenix.
“It is a monumental victory for Arizona children, educators and citizens that voters will have the chance to vote ‘no’ on a flat tax that only helps the wealthiest Arizonans,” Save Our Schools Arizona said in a news release. “Voters should not be forced to circulate petitions and take every issue to the ballot to right the wrongs of our state legislature year after year.”
The ballot initiative needed 118,823 valid signatures to make the 2022 ballot. The organizations filed 215,787 in total. Hobbs’ letter to Ducey said her office invalidated 1,105 signature pages bearing 10,720 signatures. Another 6,112 were invalidated for being ineligible. County recorders struck 2,273 out of a random sample of 10,438 signatures.
The same organizations successfully passed Prop. 208 in 2018. It adds a 3.5% income tax to personal filers making more than $250,000 annually. Should Prop. 307 succeed, the combined top marginal income tax rate would be the ninth-highest in the U.S. A circuit judge is reviewing a court challenge to Prop. 208.
The organizations that got Prop. 307 to the 2022 ballot failed to get enough signatures required to do the same against Senate Bill 1783, which allows small businesses to file taxes in a way that cap the total percentage it would pay the state in income taxes at 4.5%.
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Cole Lauterbach is a regional editor for The Center Square covering Arizona, California, and Nevada. For more than a decade, Cole has produced award-winning content on both radio and television.
Photo “People Voting” by Wyofile Wyofile. CC BY 2.0.
