Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder’s tax on pension benefits, levied in 2011, has become a legitimate campaign issue over the last few days. Snyder took to the radio this morning to defend the policy and cast the tax in a different light. Reported by Detroit News:
Democrats have made Snyder’s changes to the way pensions are taxed a major issue in the election campaign, calling it a tax on seniors — a characterization the governor challenged Friday during the live radio show.
“That’s a misstatement when it says seniors,” Snyder told radio show host Rick Pluta. “It was really about essentially removing the exclusion on pension income.”
In 2011, Snyder first proposed ending all income tax exemptions on pension income. Previously, only retirees with large pensions from private employers were subject to the income tax.
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The governor noted a new exemption of up to $40,000 was carved into the tax code for all forms of income for senior citizens.
“Now it’s fair between people who had retirement income and people who had working income,” Snyder said.
Under the changes Snyder signed into law, all pension income is subject to the 4.25 percent income tax for residents born after 1952.
“It’s still one of the top 10 most generous schemes in the country,” Snyder said of Michigan’s tax on retirement income.
Snyder reiterated his longstanding argument that making more pension income subject to the income tax was a matter of fairness to other workers.
“If you say retirement income isn’t taxed, you’re shifting your taxes to your kids to say ‘we want you to carry us,’ and that’s not a fair answer,” Snyder said.
The pension tax is especially controversial because Snyder simultaneously cut taxes for businesses by $1.8 billion.
Snyder countered that, although he cut taxes for businesses, he also “wiped out” tax credits for those businesses.