Editor’s note: This op-ed is by Joyce Errecart, the Vermont Commissioner of Taxes from 1991 to 1994.
Peter Shumlin has not been truthful about his record on taxes.
Peter Shumlin is quoted in the Sept. 27 Burlington Free Press as claiming: “I have a long record of reducing taxes in my career in the Legislature…First, historically, when we had a Democratic governor and I was Senate president for much of that time, we reduced the income tax from 32 to 25 percent, one of the biggest income tax cuts in the history of Vermont…(In 2009) We overrode a veto that included an income tax cut of almost $7 million for hardworking middle-class Vermonters…”
The facts are very different.
First, he opposed the 1994 income tax cut. In 1991 the Legislature increased the income tax from a base rate of 25 percent of federal tax to 28 percent, plus a 3 percent and a 6 percent surcharge for the highest income earners. The 1991 law provided that the income tax would revert to 25 percent of federal tax, and the surcharges would end, on January 1, 1994.
On April 27, 1993, Senator Peter Shumlin voted to repeal the sunset of the income tax surcharges and to make the surcharges permanent. That proposal was defeated on a vote of 10 to 20. The higher income tax rates reverted to 25 percent in 1994, as provided in the 1991 law, despite Shumlin’s attempts to make the tax surcharges permanent.
Second, the 2009 tax cut was coupled with a larger tax increase. In 2009 Shumlin did support a $6 million income tax cut. He failed to mention that in the same bill, there were income tax increases of $15 million. The result is that he led the charge to enact, over Gov. Douglas’ veto, a bill that had $9 million in net income tax increases.
So, Peter Shumlin claims credit for an income tax cut that he voted against, and claims credit for a $7 million income tax cut without mentioning that the same bill included a $15 million tax increase. That is not honest.
What else is Peter Shumlin misrepresenting?
