Governor Chet Culver has unveiled a proposal which would reduce taxes for individual Iowans who have an annual income of $100,000 or less, and for couples who make $200,000 a year. “A middle class tax cut for nearly one million Iowa families,” Culver says.
Those Iowans would collectively pay about $120 million less in individual state income taxes for the 2011 calendar year under Culver’s plan. The tax credit per individual would amount to $90 annually; $180 for a couple.
Culver, a Democrat seeking a second four-year term this fall, is being challenged by Republican Terry Branstad, the former four-term governor who’s seeking a fifth term.”We’re focused on middle class tax relief while Terry Branstad is focusing on corporate tax cuts for out of state corporations,” Culver says. “He’s proposed in this campaign cutting the corporate income tax in half. That would be roughly $100 million.”
Branstad’s campaign issued a statement accusing Culver of engaging in “pathetic class warfare” by granting tax breaks to middle- and lower-income Iowans. Branstad campaign manager Jeff Boeyink said Culver’s employing a “destructive divide and conquer strategy that will do nothing to help heal Iowa’s wounds.” Culver counters that a three-member panel of financial experts last week raised their estimate of state tax collections for the current year by $300 million and Iowans should have some of that money returned.
