Portland Art Tax & public employee exemption

The Portland Income Tax for Art keeps producing surprises and missteps.  Recently they had to change the formula so a person making only $35 a year would not have to pay the $35 tax — which would have been 100% of their income.   Now, roughly one year later the City of Portland announces that government retirement income will not be taxed, whereas private retiree income would be.    This would have been important to know when the issue was before voters.   Interestingly, the people benefiting from the $14 billion government pension crisis are now exempt from paying the Portland Arts Income Tax (if that pension is their sole income)

Here is a comment on KGW-TV when they interviewed the Taxpayer Association:

“When you do something brand new there will be court challenges, there will be push back, there will be revisions and tweaks that are necessary. And we can’t let that slow us down as we advocate for access to the arts in our city,” said Jessica Jarratt Miller.Miller is the Executive Director of Creative Advocacy Network, which spearheaded the arts tax. It was former Mayor Sam Adams and staff that put the original plan together.  Taxpayer advocate Jason Williams thinks it’s been a bad plan from the beginning, and it’s not getting any better.”That’s fine with me if they want to get rid of this tax; it’s a mess, it keeps getting worse by the month. Maybe it’s time for this tax to go,” said Williams.”