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Bill would change how Kentucky can lower income tax. Here's how

Bill would change how Kentucky can lower income tax. Here's how

Yahoo11-03-2025
An amended bill moving forward in the Kentucky legislature would drastically change the state's approach to reducing its income tax.
House Bill 775, sponsored by Republican Rep. Jason Nemes, includes a provision adding new conditions that would let the state reduce its individual income tax in increments from 0.1% to 0.5%.
Under current law, the General Assembly is only authorized to decrease the tax rate by 0.5% annually if certain triggers are met, based on the state's revenue and rainy day fund balance. The Republican-controlled legislature's goal is to eventually eliminate the tax.
Last year, Republican leaders announced the state budget hit its triggers to lower the tax rate from 4% to 3.5%. Lawmakers approved House Bill 1 to implement that cut earlier this session, and Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear signed it into law.
HB 775 bill passed out of the House Appropriations & Revenue Committee on Tuesday on a 16-3-1 vote.
During the meeting, Minority Floor Leader Pamela Stevenson, D-Louisville, asked why a change was needed to the system the legislature previously put in place.
Republican Rep. Jason Petrie, chair of the committee, said as conditions and viewpoints change, programs get modified to accommodate that.
"This continues with the same policy of reduction and continues with the same policy of conditions, and it should be of some satisfaction to some that we may not hit a half a point, but we may hit something smaller so more state revenue continues to come in," Petrie said.
Meanwhile, Republican Rep. Ken Fleming said the revised approach will help the state attract workers and "put more money in people's pockets."
"We went through a methodical systematic approach to look at how we can reduce the income tax, and at the time we talked about looking at smaller increments ... but I think this is going to be a good process and good way to look at smaller increments given the market conditions, given the economic situations and giving us more flexibility to achieve our goals," Fleming said.
Reach reporter Hannah Pinski at hpinski@courier-journal.com or follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter, at @hannahpinski.
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Kentucky legislature: Bill would make changes for income tax cuts
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Over 200 rallies are expected across the country to protest Trump-led redistricting plans
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Over 200 rallies are expected across the country to protest Trump-led redistricting plans

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Trump's aggressive push to take over DC policing may be a template for an approach in other cities
Trump's aggressive push to take over DC policing may be a template for an approach in other cities

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'If our capital is dirty, our whole country is dirty, and they don't respect us.' He then upped the stakes by declaring federal control of the district's police department and naming an emergency chief. That set off alarms and prompted local officials to sue to stop the effort. 'I have never seen a single government action that would cause a greater threat to law and order than this dangerous directive,' Police Chief Pamela Smith said. On Friday, the Trump administration partially retreated from its effort to seize control of the Metropolitan Police Department when a judge, skeptical that the president had the authority to do what he tried to do, urged both sides to reach a compromise, which they did — at least for now. Trump's Justice Department agreed to leave Smith in control, while still intending to instruct her department on law enforcement practices. 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A stranger to nuance, Trump has used the language of emergency to justify much of what he's done: his deportations of foreigners, his tariffs, his short-term deployment of National Guard troops to Los Angeles, and now his aggressive intervention into Washington policing. Washington does have crime and endemic homelessness, like every city in the country. But there was nothing like an urban fire that the masses thought needed to be quelled. Violent crime is down, as it is in many U.S. cities. Washington is also a city about which most Americans feel ownership — or at least that they have a stake. More than 25 million of them visited in 2024, a record year, plus over 2 million people from abroad. It's where middle schoolers on field trips get to see what they learn about in class — and perhaps to dance to pop tunes with the man with the music player so often in front of the White House. Washington is part federal theme park, with its historic buildings and museums, and part downtown, where restaurants and lobbyists outnumber any corporate presence. Neighborhoods range from the places where Jeff Bezos set a record for a home purchase price to destitute streets in economically depressed areas that are also magnets for drugs and crime. In 1968, the capital was a city on fire with riots. Twenty years later, a murder spree and crack epidemic fed the sense of a place out of control. But over the last 30 years, the city's population and its collective wealth have swelled. A cooked-up emergency? Against that backdrop, Philadelphia's top prosecutor, District Attorney Larry Krasner, a Democrat, assailed Trump's moves in Washington. 'You're talking about an emergency, really?' Krasner said, as if speaking with the president. 'Or is it that you're talking about an emergency because you want to pretend everything is an emergency so that you can roll tanks?" In Washington, a coalition of activists called Not Above the Law denounced what they saw as just the latest step by Trump to seize levers of power he has no business grasping. 'The onslaught of lawlessness and autocratic activities has escalated,' said Lisa Gilbert, co-chair of the group and co-president of Public Citizen. 'The last two weeks should have crystallized for all Americans that Donald Trump will not stop until democracy is replaced by vindictive authoritarian rule.' Fifty miles northeast, in the nearest major city, Baltimore's Democratic mayor criticized what he saw as Trump's effort to distract the public from economic pain and 'America's falling standing in the world.' 'Every mayor and police chief in America works with our local federal agents to do great work — to go after gun traffickers, to go after violent organizations,' Brandon Scott said. 'How is taking them off of that job, sending them out to just patrol the street, making our country safer?' 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