By Howard Fischer Capitol Media Services via Arizona Daily Star
A judge has slapped down efforts by the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry to block people from voting on whether to hike income taxes on the rich to generate $690 million a year for education.
In an extensive ruling this morning, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge James Smith acknowledged that, strictly speaking, hiking the top tax income tax rate from 4.54 percent to 8 percent for those earning more than $250,000 a year, actually increases the tax rate on those earnings by 76 percent. Similarly, taking the tax rate for earnings above $500,000 for individuals to 9 percent is a 98 percent increase over the current rate.
But Smith said that did not make it inherently misleading for organizers of the Invest in Ed initiative to describe the tax hikes as 3.46 percent and 4.46 percent, the absolute difference between the current rate and the proposed new ones.
