By Dawn Baumgartner Vaughan
The Herald-Sun, Durham, N.C.
(TNS)
Gov. Josh Stein is calling a constitutional amendment capping North Carolina’s income tax rate a “con” and a “cynical shell game” that would put the burden for raising revenue on the backs of “regular” North Carolinians.
Voters will get to decide in November if they want the state income tax rate capped at 3.5%, down from the current cap of 7%. The General Assembly passed a bill that adds the amendment to ballots this year. Most Democrats opposed the move, saying it will hem in future lawmakers who need to raise revenue.
State revenue from income and sales taxes are what’s used to fund salaries for state employees and teachers.
Stein said the cap would make “regular people pay the consequences of it,” because if there is a recession and revenues are needed, that could result in an increase in the sales tax.
The state sales tax rate is 4.75%, with consumers also being charged local sales taxes on top of that.
He said “there’s no question” that sales tax would need to be raised if there is a recession under the parameter of a 3.5% income tax cap.
The state personal income tax rate is currently 3.99%, and set to drop to 3.49% in Republicans’ budget deal announced earlier this month.
“What I want is a long-term sustained investment in the public servants who do the people’s business. What the constitutional amendment does is consign us to a bleak future,” Stein told reporters during a press conference on Wednesday at the Albemarle Building in downtown Raleigh. That future would include less money for raises for state employees, he said.
Stein also criticized Republicans’ plan to continue dropping the corporate income tax rate, which is currently 2%.
With less tax revenue, Stein said “we will have to continue to be at the bottom of pay for state employees and have services start to degrade, or degrade even worse over time, or we’re going to have to get revenue from somewhere else, which would be through the sales tax. Which again is taking money out of the pockets of regular people.”
Republicans are generally opposed to raising any taxes. Stein wants the current tax rates to remain where they are now.
Photo caption: North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein (YouTube)
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© 2026 The Herald-Sun (Durham, N.C.). Visit www.heraldsun.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency LLC.
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