A proposed increase in the Little Rock sales tax was defeated. | Morguefile
A proposed increase in the Little Rock sales tax was defeated. | Morguefile
A proposed increase in the Little Rock sales tax has been defeated following a 62% majority of special session votes against the bill.
The “penny tax” bill would have raised the city’s sales tax from 9% to 9.625%, THV11 reported.
“At a time when Arkansas' Governor and General Assembly are looking to reduce the tax burden this seemed to go in the wrong direction,” Chalmer Wayland, managing partner at Red Tusk Campaigns, told the Natural State News.
Mayor Frank Scott Jr. proposed the tax, hoping to bring in more revenue for the city’s parks, education and zoo, according to THV11. However, opponents state it would do more harm than good.
“Sales taxes are regressive and would hurt struggling families the hardest,” Wayland said. “This tax would have also hurt the competitiveness of businesses in Little Rock without a clear return on investment.”
Wayland congratulated the group effort taken to stop the city’s tax increase from both sides of the aisle.
"The defeat of the LR tax increase was a team effort. Several groups from all sides of the political spectrum worked together,” Wayland wrote in a tweet Sept. 15.
Producer price index, a metric used to track inflation that measures the prices that producers in the United States receive for their goods, rose 7.8% over the last year, ending July 2021, according to CNN.
This is the highest this rate has been since it started getting calculated in 2010.
Wayland is a managing partner with Red Tusk Campaigns, a group dedicated to campaigning for Republican candidates. He said the groups who worked to defeat the bill shared a common cause and hoped to educate people on why this wasn't a good choice for the city.
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