Knopp vows to protect kicker refunds from effort by ‘left-wing socialist-adjacent’ group to keep it for government use
SALEM, Ore. (KTVZ) -- Reports from KATU News indicate the left-wing, socialist-adjacent Oregon Center for Public Policy is leading yet another attempt to take the Kicker refund from taxpayers to grow state government and line progressive pockets.
“Far too many Oregonians feel the impacts of high taxes, inflation, and other rising costs due to decades of poor policy decisions. Oregon workers rely on their proportional refund of over-collected taxes and do not want anyone to reform it, reduce it, or take it away. That’s why voters enshrined the Kicker in the Constitution,” said Senate Republican Leader Tim Knopp (R-Bend).
“It is beyond disappointing to see the OCPP, a radical Portland-based nonprofit and longtime Kicker opponent, focus all their efforts on taking dollars that belong in the pockets of working Oregonians – and misleading people to do it.”
The Beaver State’s unique tax refund, passed by voters in 1980 and enshrined in the state constitution in 2000, kicks money back to Oregon taxpayers when actual revenues exceed forecasted revenues by 2% or more. This year, the personal income tax kicker will send a record-breaking $5.61 billion – or 44.28% of Oregon income taxes paid – back to working Oregonians as a credit.
--
News release from the Oregon Center for Public Policy:
| Study finds kicker worsens racial economic inequality |
| The first-ever analysis of the racial impact of Oregon’s kicker law finds that the tax rebate deepens racial economic inequality. According to a new study by the Oregon Center for Public Policy, most communities of color receive a significantly smaller share of kicker dollars than their share of Oregon’s income tax filers. “The big winners from the current kicker policy are the rich, a mostly white group,” said OCPP Deputy Director Daniel Hauser. “The majority of Oregonians, especially Oregonians of color, get the short end of the stick.” The study from OCPP arrives as Oregonians are filing tax returns and claiming a portion of a record-shattering kicker totaling about $5.6 billion. The report examined data from the 2021 kicker, which paid out $1.6 billion in tax rebates to full-year residents. The average white tax filer got a rebate worth $909, compared to $542 for Black, $519 for Latino, and $512 for American Indian and Alaska Native tax filers, OCPP said. The report also found that white Oregonians with yearly income above half a million dollars — about 20,000 tax filers — together received more than $290 million in kicker rebates. Their collective total was more than the combined total kicker dollars received by the approximately 410,000 non-white filers in Oregon. “The economic inequality by race that we see today is the result of decades and centuries of exploitation and exclusion; it is the result of public policy,” said Hauser. “Sadly, the current kicker only makes matters worse.” The report recommended changing the formula by which the kicker is distributed, giving every tax filer an equal rebate. Had this version of the kicker, which OCPP calls the “Working Families Kicker,” been in place in 2021, every tax filer would have received a kicker worth $850. The analysis concluded that most Oregonians of color and white Oregonians would receive a larger amount under a Working Families Kicker that gives everyone the average amount. “Under the current kicker, most white Oregonians receive less than the average kicker,” the study said, “due to the fact that so much of the kicker flows to the richest Oregonians.” “Transforming the kicker into the Working Families Kicker,” Hauser said, “would not only push back against economic inequality by race, but also benefit the vast majority of Oregonians, be they Black, brown, or white.” The Oregon Center for Public Policy is a non-partisan, non-profit institute that does in-depth research and analysis on budget, tax, and economic issues. The Center’s goal is to improve decision-making and generate more opportunities for all Oregonians. Read the report The Kicker Deepens Racial Inequality. |
