Democrats "Improve" HB 628: They Cut The Benefit Time in Half and Hike the Income Tax by 34% - Granite Grok

Democrats “Improve” HB 628: They Cut The Benefit Time in Half and Hike the Income Tax by 34%

HB628 killing the NH AdvantageThe New Hampshire Income Tax is not dead yet. Yes, the subcommittee recommended the bill as Inexpedient to Legislate (ITL), and odds are improving that the full committee will follow suit, but the subcommittee minority report included an amendment that is (presumably) meant to make the bill more “appealing” to the Republican majority committee and legislature. Or maybe not.

Elliot Axelman, writing at LibertyBlock.com, has the update.

The House Commerce Committee voted the bill ‘Inexpedient to Legislate’ which is good news but does not bind the representatives to vote that way once the whole House votes on HB628. The Democrats on the committee voted to support the bill with an amendment that makes the bill much worse than it already was.

In light of overwhelming testimony by government officials who calculated the potential numbers of the FMLI program created by HB628 demonstrating that the program would be gravely insolvent, House Democrats have proposed an amendment that makes two large changes to the existing bill. House Democrats proposed that the House should:

1) Cut the maximum amount of time a person could be paid for leave from 12 weeks to six weeks and 

2) Increase the tax rate from 0.5% to 0.67%. I said weeks ago that this seemingly negligible tax rate would not remain low forever. As it turns out, the rate has seemingly increased before HB628 even hit the Senate!

The Democrat’s amendment cuts the “benefit” time in half but raises the tax by 34%?

This little ploy is undoubtedly meant to facilitate a floor fight, and more amendments as the tax and spenders try to get their income tax foot into the door of your paycheck. Someone will recommend lowering the tax back to its original number or one lower, to appease however many RINO’s they need to pass this.

Beleive me when I tell you that they’ll accept any number down to 0.01% if it gets the mechanism to tax individual income into state Statute. All so they can then use that wedge to build upon later.

Don’t fall for it.

A full committee ITL is next, followed by a full-throated defense of the New Hampshire Advantage. No broad-based taxes, period.

It’s still a lousy bill written by people with evil intentions. The mechanics are awful. And, oh, by the way, It’s a frikkin’ Income tax.

Family Medical Leave policies are something the free market and business owners can address in parallel with the Existing Federal program.

You can read more about this garbage bill here, here, here, and here, and here, here, and here.

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