After the DFL’s legislative victories in the House and Senate, it became fashionable to talk about major tax hikes. It didn’t take long for the DFL to quickly tamp that talk down and replace it with chanting points touting tax reform instead. Fortunately for the GOP, I’ve kept track of the DFL’s tax reform proposals, including their previous reform proposal:

“This bill proposes the most significant tax overhaul in 20 years,” said the bill’s chief author Rep. Ann Lenczeswki, DFL-Bloomington.

In addition to the tax hikes, Lenczewski’s bill removes a variety of tax breaks for homeowners and businesses. Charitable contributions, the mortgage interest tax deduction and the property tax deduction for homeowners are eliminated and replaced with a tax credit based on income.

The bill also eliminates several business tax breaks, like the Research and Development credit and parts of the governor’s JOBZ program.

Lenczewski said she wants to clean up the state’s tax code.

“Which is to sweep the tax code clean of all of the preferential treatment and subsidies and things we can’t afford anymore and instead bring a fairer, more progressive income tax to Minnesotans based on the ability to pay,” she said.

Rep. Lenczewski’s tax overhaul is stunning because it would’ve:

• Raised tax rates
• Eliminated deductions for home mortgage interest, charitable giving and property taxes
• Eliminated the R & D tax deduction for businesses.

Mitch Berg has a great post about DFL tax increases titled “Now We Are All ‘The Rich’”. Unfortunately, Mitch didn’t include Cy Thao’s infamous quote, which I broke in this post:

Today, at a committee hearing, Cy Thao told Steve “When you guys win, you get to keep your money. When we win, we take your money.”

Another golden oldie that I haven’t talked about recently is Steve Murphy’s quote about the 2008 gas tax increase:

Tucked away in a big transportation funding bill being fast-tracked to a Senate floor vote today are future increases in Minnesota’s gas tax that could push it from 20 cents a gallon to more than 40 cents over 10 years, higher than any state’s current bite at the pump.

“I’m not trying to fool anybody,” said Sen. Steve Murphy, DFL-Red Wing, sponsor of the measure that would increase funding for roads and transit by $1.5 billion a year once it was fully implemented in the next decade. “There’s a lot of taxes in this bill.”

In short, the DFL’s happy talk about tax reform is what most people call tax hikes. There’s little in the way of replacing the relic tax code with a 21st Century tax code. Historically speaking, there’s just lots of major tax hikes to the DFL’s tax ‘reforms’.

Whatever the DFL calls it, the reality is that their ‘reforms’ will hit everyone hard.

Comments welcome at Let Freedom Ring.