Press release: Feb. 23, 2011

Bill to Phase Out Income Tax
Scheduled for ‘Non-vote’ Hearing Thursday
 
OKLAHOMA CITY – State Rep. Josh Cockroft announced today that his legislation to further lower the state income tax to 5 percent in 2011 and phase it out by 2016 would get a “non-vote” hearing by a House appropriations subcommittee at 1:30 p.m. Thursday.
            House Bill 1543 would reduce the income tax by 1 percent each year, down to 0 percent in 2016. The House Appropriations and Budget Subcommittee on Revenue and Taxation will hear discussion of the bill in room 432A.
            “I am grateful for Committee Chair David Dank for agreeing to a discussion of the bill before the committee,” Cockroft, R-McLoud, said. “Phasing out the income tax in Oklahoma would dramatically increase our state’s ability to keep and attract employers and jobs. And it would empower individual Oklahomans to have more control over their own economic destiny.”
            Cockroft said that an interim study is being held to determine the fiscal impact of reducing and eliminating the state income tax.
            “I will be very interested to hear the results of that study,” Cockroft said. “Groups such as the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs and others have even proposed, and rightly so I believe, that getting rid of Oklahoma’s personal income tax could be the single greatest move we could make to energize our state’s economy. I am simply asking leaders of this state to hear the people’s will on this issue and enact serious policy towards the reduction and elimination of the personal state income tax.”