For Immediate Release:
April 14, 2000
Kentucky Youth Advocates & The Coalition for Tax Fairness Announce State Rep. Jim Wayne to pre-file a bill creating tax credit for working poor
Frankfort – The Coalition for Tax Fairness will hold two press conferences on Tax Day, Monday, April 17, at Louisville and Lexington Post Offices to emphasize the high taxes of working families. Representative Jim Wayne, D-Louisville, will attend to introduce legislation to provide a state tax credit to working families mired in poverty. He will pre-file the bill for the 2002 Regular Session.
Kentucky Youth Advocates and the Coalition for Tax Fairness supported Rep. Wayne’s recent efforts to adopt a tax credit for Kentucky’s working poor in the 2000 Session. Unfortunately, the General Assembly did not approve any tax cuts for the working poor.
Kentucky continues to have the most burdensome tax system for the working poor. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a non-partisan research organization based in Washington, D.C., Kentucky taxes a working poor family of four more than any other state with an income tax. “Kentucky places a high tax burden on the same people we are trying to help transition successfully to the workforce. That simply does not make sense,” Debra Miller, Executive Director of Kentucky Youth Advocates, stated. The Coalition for Tax Fairness is working toward a fairer tax system and urges the Kentucky General Assembly to provide a hand-up to Kentucky’s working families.
A Kentucky Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) would build on the federal EITC in which qualified families receive refundable tax credits to offset their total tax burden. Under Representative Wayne’s proposal, these families would receive from the state an additional five percent of the federal credit in the first year the law would take effect, 10 percent the following year, and 15 percent every year thereafter. This initiative would provide much needed tax relief to over 300,000 low-income Kentucky tax-filers.
Members of the Coalition for Tax Fairness and Rep. Wayne will discuss the bill beginning at 10 am at Louisville’s Gardner Lane Post Office. The second announcement will be held at 2 pm at Lexington’s Nandino Boulevard Post Office.
The Coalition is comprised of the following groups: Kentucky State AFL-CIO, Kentucky Youth Advocates, Catholic Conference of Kentucky, Coalition for the Homeless, Kentucky Association for Community Action, Kentucky Task Force on Hunger, Housing and Homeless Coalition of Kentucky, Catholic Charities, Kentucky Legal Services Program, Children’s Alliance, Kentucky Council of Churches, Kentucky Welfare Reform Coalition, Kentucky State District Council of Carpenters (AFL-CIO), 4-C (Louisville), Neighborhood Place Bridges of Hope, Metropolitan Housing Coalition (Louisville), NOW (Kentucky Chapter), League of Women Voters of Kentucky, Democracy Resource Center, Mental Health Association of Kentucky, Louisville Tenants Association, Kentuckians For The Commonwealth (KFTC), The Laurence and Augusta Hager Educational Foundation (Owensboro), and Kentucky Child 2000.
Contact:
Doug Hall, Sr. Policy Analyst
Abby Hughes, Communication Specialist
Kentucky Youth Advocates
(502) 875-4865