Gov. Fallin to WSJ: Income Tax Cut Coming Next Year

• Joe Wertz
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  Joe Wertz was a reporter and managing editor for StateImpact Oklahoma from 2011-2019. He reported on energy and environment issues for national NPR audiences and other national outlets. He previously worked as a managing editor, assistant editor and staff reporter at several major Oklahoma newspapers and studied journalism at the University of Central Oklahoma.

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Gov. Mary Fallin

Despite Republican control of the governor’s office and the state legislature, pledges to cut Oklahoma’s individual income tax failed last year because GOP members, the Wall Street Journal‘s Stephen Moore writes, “wanted to spend more on district pet projects rather than cut tax rates.”

Next year will be different, Gov. Mary Fallin tells the paper. Look out, Kansas and Nebraska:

“We are going to get that tax cut done next year,” she insists. “We only had $2 in our rainy day fund when I came into office, but now we have a healthy reserve to finance a rate cut. We cut our unemployment rate by 30 percent since coming into office, and we’ve led the nation in manufacturing jobs.”

The plan, Fallin tells the WSJ, is to get Oklahoma’s top income tax rate of 5.25 percent down to 4.8 percent “or lower” — less than Kansas’s recently reduced rate.

Tax rates are going to come down, the governor promises. It’s only a question of “how much and how fast.”