Funding NC with a Fair and Adequate Tax System

North Carolina should ensure that our priorities—for good schools, healthy neighbors and safe communities— are supported with our tax dollars.

The fundamental purpose of a tax system is to fund investments in core public services — schools, courts, hospitals, colleges and universities, and infrastructure — that are critical to preserving a strong middle class and building a 21st century economy.

Beginning in 2013, state lawmakers made significant changes to North Carolina’s tax system, in particular large income tax cuts that largely benefit the well-off and profitable corporations while doing nothing to reduce the greater tax load carried by low- and middle-income families and individuals.

In 2019, leaders in the North Carolina General Assembly have scheduled another round of tax cuts that will reduce the corporate income tax rate for profitable and large businesses and further reduce the flat income tax rate.

The result of this next tax cut, according to the state’s Fiscal Research Division, is that the state’s tax code will not be able to deliver current services to the state’s growing population after Fiscal Year 2020.