In 2007 the Michigan Legislature approved a “temporary” income tax hike, raising the rate from 3.9 percent to 4.35 percent. Embedded in the legislation was a promise to gradually roll back the tax hike starting in 2011, returning to the previous 3.9 percent rate by 2015.
Instead, in 2012 the Legislature voted to freeze the income tax rate at 4.25 percent and cancel the scheduled reductions. The income tax never went back to the original 3.9 percent. In 2016 alone, Michigan taxpayers delivered an extra $770 million in income taxes that they wouldn’t have had to pay if the 2007 tax cut promise had been kept.
Michigan Capitol Confidential is the news source produced by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Michigan Capitol Confidential reports with a free-market news perspective.