Republican candidate Jim Nussle is promising to create an “Iowa Taxpayer Refund Account” if he’s elected governor. Under current law, excess state tax revenues are deposited in a rainy day savings account for emergencies, but Nussle wants to appoint a new commission to come up with ways to return a portion of that to taxpayers.
“So that 30 percent of that surplus will be set aside for the purpose of allowing that Tax Commission to look for reforms to provide relief to taxpayers,” Nussle says. “It could be in the form of property tax. It could be in the form of income tax.”
Nussle, who is currently chairman of the U.S. House Budget Committee, says by committing a third of excess state tax revenues to tax relief, it would curb state lawmakers’ appetite for spending as much tax money as they can.
“A way to try and ensure that when taxpayers pay more to the state government than what was anticipated, we return that to them so that they can invest it in creating economic opportunity for the future,” Nussle says. If such an Iowa Taxpayer Refund Account had been in place for the past three years, Nussle says there would be about 150-million dollars in it now.