Community Corner

Connecticut's Richest Residents Pay Fewer Taxes

A report by Connecticut Voices For Children says the state's wealthiest 1 percent of taxpayers are not paying their fair share.

The following post was written and reported by Eileen McNamara.

Connecticut's wealthiest residents pay a smaller share of state and local taxes than middle and lower income residents, Connecticut's Voices For Children says in a new report. 

While the federal income tax structure calls on the nation's wealthiest to pay a higher share of taxes, Connecticut's system does just the opposite, the group says in a position paper published Friday. 

"In Connecticut’s regressive system, the wealthiest 1% of taxpayers pay about half the share of their income on state and local taxes (5.5%) that middle-income (10.5%) and lower-income (11%) residents pay," the paper says. 

In addition, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy is now proposing limiting one of the Connecticut tax programs intended to ease the tax burden of the state's working poor, Connecticut Voices says in the paper. 

"Connecticut’s Earned Income Tax Credit, which went into effect in 2011, has helped to make Connecticut taxes less regressive and to offset the impact of recent sales tax increases, which hit lower-income residents harder," the group says. However, Malloy has proposed scaling back the credit under his budget proposal for next year. 

While Connecticut Voices argues that the richest in this state aren't pulling their weight in taxes, the conservative Yankee Institute for Public Policy says that's not true.  

The Yankee Institute holds that the top 6 percent of income tax filers in this state, which includes those earning more than $250,000 annually, pay more than the bottom 94 percent combined. The top 1.3 percent, which represents those earning more than $1 million per year, account for 35 percent of all state income taxes, according to the the blog Capitol Watch. 

Connecticut Voice's analysis of the state's tax laws, the blog quotes Yankee Institute's Executive Director Fergus Cullen, "is basically 19th century-style class warfare. That’s where they come from. Their solution is to keep taxing the rich. They’re ignoring the fact that the rich pay a hugely disproportionate share. The wealthy are paying far more than their fair share of taxes.”


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