MN House tax bill advances despite Rep. Rukavina concerns about regressive taxes

Disagreement among senior members of the DFL House Caucus became apparent today as Represenative Tom Rukavina talked about how he lost a lot of sleep last night thinking about the proposed tax bill. He doesn’t have a problem with the progressive taxes in the bill which include creating a new income tax bracket for Minnesota’s richest citizens. He is concerned about regressive taxes in the bill that would hit the lower and middle class. He proposed reducing those regressive taxes by simply adding a 2.5% surcharge to the income tax. The proposal was defeated 6-23 in the House Tax Committee.

UPDATE: Rukavina did vote for the final tax bill to get it out of committee (it passed 16-14), but he said he was still troubled by it and may not vote for it on the house floor.