When Gov.Nikki Haley peers into her crystal ball, what does she see?
First, taxpayers get a $5.6 billion tax cut, after subtracting higher gas taxes, over the next 10 years.
Second, businesses and working people pour over the S.C. border, drawn to the Palmetto State’s newly lowered income tax.
Third, a booming economy pays for those tax cuts, while a boost in the gas tax repairs S.C. roads.
“When you reduce or don’t have income tax, investment comes, businesses come, people come” and, along with them, more money, the two-term Lexington Republican said at a news conference last week, touting her tax-swap plan as a way to ensure South Carolina remains competitive with its neighbors.
Under Haley’s plan, state revenues would be $1.7 billion higher in 2025, even after subtracting her phased-in tax cuts, leaving the state an average of $170 million in extra cash to spend each year, according to a budget forecast that Frank Rainwater, executive director of the S.C. Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Office, provided The Buzz.
Tens of millions would go immediately, as they do each year, to education, health care, retirement and other liabilities that increase with the population.
That forecast assumes – unreliably, Rainwater noted – that nothing changes; there are no economic booms or busts.
South Carolina Association of Taxpayers 