Playing games with our 2025 Kicker refund

By Taxpayers Association of Oregon
OregonWatchdog.com

Last Friday the State of Oregon announced that it is official that the Kicker will kick and people will get a refund in 2026.   This is because Oregon over-collected $1.4 billion in un-expected surplus tax revenue, and that over-collected tax revenue will be sent back to taxpayers who paid it when they file their taxes this April (2026).

For several decades, when the State of Oregon economists announced the Kicker returns they always provided a chart featuring helpful salary levels of Oregonians followed by average expected Kicker refunds based on those salary levels.    This time, the chart could not be found in media reports nor on the State Economists website.

This time, the State of Oregon asked people to figure out their Kicker refund (not by an-easy-to-read chart) but by filling out a form online at the Department of Revenue.

The online form requires you to enter your Social Security Number.   We think creating new non-essential government portals involving access to the entire list of Social Security Numbers of the entire State is a security risk.  Each new portal requires more security to protect it.

The more troubling issue is the fact that the form mandates that you surrender your email for future use by the State of Oregon.  Look at the wording below:

There is no “click here if you want future solicitations” button which is the gold standard for commercial websites.  It reads,”Notice: When you click “Find My Kicker” you agree to get information from us electronically, both now and the future.”

Why?

Why can’t the website just create a simple online form where people enter their expected wages and it provide an answer without involving Social Security Numbers and surrendering your email for eternity to the Department of Revenue?

It is curious that the two things we fault the State of Oregon for doing, just happens to work together.  You see, by Oregon not releasing their traditional Kicker chart as they have done for years, and then at the same time introducing their new tool to give you the same information but requiring surrendering your email, seems very convenient to the State.

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