Was there a tax hike in 2009?

COLUMBUS

There’s at least one thing the new governor and the old governor appear to agree on: Ohio’s income tax rates dropped as of this month, marking the final reduction in a much-touted multi-year reform package.

John Kasich and Ted Strickland’s administration in recent weeks have mentioned the decrease, the latter as part of a press release from his tax commissioner in the waning days of his administration.

Kasich’s support of the decrease isn’t surprising — he wants to cut Ohio’s tax rates and eventually get rid of the state’s income tax.

But the Strickland administration’s comments, via the Department of Taxation, appear to fly in the face of its earlier stance on the tax freeze implemented to shore up the budget in late 2009.

The issue was front and center during last year’s gubernatorial campaign, with Kasich calling the move a tax hike and Strickland and his tax commissioner, Richard Levin, saying it was merely a postponement.

The final year of the income tax cuts actually took effect on Jan. 1, 2009. But in late September of that year, Strickland and Levin announced a plan to return the rates to 2008 levels.

As Levin put it at the time, “Rather than having the 2009 rate fall, as in current law, legislation would be introduced to freeze the rates ... to the same rates as 2008.”

Tax filing

One of the bases for that comment was that Ohioans wouldn’t be filing their taxes until the following year. So, technically, when tax time rolled around, the rates they ended up paying were the same as the previous year.

It didn’t matter that employers had been withholding the tax at the lower rate from their workers’ paychecks for more than nine months.

Plus the majority of Ohioans, tax officials pointed out at the time, have more withheld from their paychecks than they have to and receive refunds.

The reasoning is fine if you stick to it. But just before New Year’s Day, Levin issued a new press release drawing attention to the fact that “Ohio’s individual income tax rates will fall by more than 4 percent across the board ... meaning additional savings for Ohio taxpayers.”

And, “... for a family of four earning $60,000, it means $77 less tax per year. Such a family was already paying about $309 less income tax per year because of four previous rate reductions.”

It also noted the “larger historical significance” of the rate reductions — marking the final year of Republicans’ tax reform package.

The same press release could have been issued in December 2008.

It seems odd that the outgoing administration, which for months has countered Kasich’s assertions that their actions in late 2009 amounted to a tax increase, would validate the governor-elect’s reasoning on the matter.

Unless they’re hoping he comes back later this year and attempts to continue the rate freeze.

In which case it likely will be the Democrats shouting tax increase.

Marc Kovac is The Vindicator’s Statehouse correspondent. E-mail him at mkovac@dixcom.com or on Twitter at OhioCapitalBlog.