Session 2023: Hosemann Proposed $500 Tax Refund Checks to Increase Education Spending and Health Care Fixes
$500 Taxpayers rebate checks to be released by Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann to increase education spending and push year-’round schooling and pre-K, and find fixes for the state’s health care crisis “not just for next year, but for the next generation.”
Hosemann and the Senate he oversees are at odds with his fellow Republican leaders in the House as some of his policy priorities for the 2023 legislative session that starts Jan. 3.
To start, House Speaker Philip Gunn and other GOP leaders said recently they want to eliminate the state income tax, not give one-time rebate checks. House and Senate Republican majorities are also expected to spar over extending postpartum Medicaid coverage for working mothers, which Hosemann and Senate leaders continue to support after it failed in the House last session.
Hosemann said that they did the largest tax cut ever last year, close to $500 million in income taxes cut and they have an excess of $270 million this year from the estimate of taxes collected. This is the tax rebate that they proposed to send back.
Session 2023: Hosemann Proposes Tax Refund Checks up to $500, Increased Ed Spending, Health Care Fixes
According to his statement, Hosemann said he will propose to refund taxpayers “dollar-for-dollar” what they paid in state income taxes for the past year “from the bottom up until we run out of money.” Then followed that the initial estimates are that refund checks would be capped at about $500.
According to a published post by Mississippi Today, the personal income tax is still under review and subject to be phased out by Republicans Gov. Tate Reeves and Gunn as a follow-on to the massive income tax cuts passed last year, which are still being implemented. They say this will give the state an advantage in economic development.
As stated by Hosemann and Senate leaders, the national and state economies are in turbulent, inflationary times with recession possible, and much of the state surplus is from unprecedented federal spending that isn’t likely to continue or recur. Fully eliminating the income tax in such uncertain economic times is foolhardy, and the state’s current windfall should be viewed as one-time money and given back to taxpayers as a one-time check.
