The goal for the Blue Ribbon Commission is to suggest reforms that will create a tax system that meets these principles:
Fairness
Competitiveness
Simplicity and Compliance
Elasticity
Adequacy
The Blue Ribbon Commission on Tax Reform took steps toward formulating a set of recommendations to overhaul Kentucky’s tax system at a day-long meeting on Thursday, with both some hopeful actions and some discouraging discussions.
Commissioners spent several hours talking about changes in individual income taxes, and put together a package of suggested reforms. There was broad support for a state refundable Earned Income Tax Credit, and they ended up settling on a level at 15% of the federal EITC – exactly what KFTC has supported in the Kentucky Forward Plan!
Rolling through streets and neighborhoods, members of the Southern KY chapter of KFTC visited the Westside where we have focused our canvassing, reminding people to vote with home made signs and our voices. We then visited two polling places and WKU, and finished on the square downtown.
We also did two interviews and video for WKU-TV with Ka'Seana Blanton and had a photographer follow us around for the whole ride.
We're also giving rides to the polls and fielding phone calls, and doing it all in style.
Here in the Central KY time zone, we have just over two hours left before the polls close.
Students from Dixie Heights High School, Samantha and Ally Lamar, in Northern Kentucky heard about the NKY chapter's get out the vote work, and came down to lend a hand!
Learning more about KFTC's work, they also decided to join, and look forward to joining the chapter at the upcoming NKY Loves Mountains event at Groove Coffee House this Saturday!
This morning at 6:15 a.m., I got a call from Teddi Smith Robillard, 73, of Lexington telling me that she had just voted.
Teddi is a former felon who has been fighting since Spring of last year to get her right to vote back in Kentucky and this is the first time she's been able to vote since the early 80s.
"It's been very weird," Teddi said, thinking back. "For so much of my life, I've helped people to register to vote - hundreds of people - but I haven't been able to vote myself. It always felt strange to me, but I still did it because of how important voting is.
Madison County KFTC members young and otherwise have been hard at work getting voters to the polls.
Our "Just Voted" car is catching attention around Richmond and Berea.
Members, including 8 year olds Madison and McKayla, are passing out voter guides and waving signs at local businesses.
We've been calling Berea College students to get them on shuttles that the college Student Government Association is running. And we made a few shuttle trips ourselves.
We still have a few two and a half hours to get everyone to the polls, so we're going to do everything we can to get them there!
