Rocky Gonet
The Democrats have been running an ad in the governor's race in which Rocky Gonet, a retiree from Scio Township, complains about Gov. Rick Snyder raising taxes on retirement income.
"Now I gotta scramble to make ends meet," he says in the ad, adding: "I’ll be honest with ya, I’m scared. I don’t know what the future’s gonna hold."
Chris Christoff of Bloomberg News writes:
Michigan Governor Rick Snyder’s 2011 tax increase on retirement income from pensions is haunting the Republican as he runs for a second term in a graying state still recovering from the recession.
Polls have shown Snyder, 56, in a dead heat with Democratic challenger Mark Schauer, 52, a former state legislator and congressman who’s hammering Snyder for hurting pensioners while cutting business taxes by $1.4 billion.
All that being said, Bridge Magazine's Truth Squad calls the ad misleading.
Bridge writes:
Rocky Gonet, the Scio Township retiree featured in this ad, frets about his retirement savings following changes to the state tax code championed by Gov. Rick Snyder. “Now, I gotta scramble to make ends meet,” Gonet says, adding, “I don’t know what the future’s gonna hold.”
The claim that Snyder decided to tax pensions is true, as discussed in earlier Truth Squads. Snyder’s 2011 overhaul of the state’s tax code removed an exemption for pension income. Many retirees have complained loudly about their pensions being taxed like any other income, though the blow was softened somewhat by having the change phased in: those born before 1946 saw no change, those born from 1946-1952 get a smaller exemption, and those born after get none. Gonet, 66, falls into the middle group and pays state income taxes on a previously exempt $7,000 portion of his pension, according to a DGA press release.The claim that property taxes were raised on senior citizens is misleading in that it gives the impression that a change on property taxes was targeted specifically to seniors. The assertion refers to another plank in the tax overhaul, which removed the homestead tax credit – the credit applied to one’s main residence – for households making over $50,000 or for homes with a taxable value of more than $135,000. Many retired Michigan homeowners could fall into this category, but the change wasn’t specifically aimed at them.
The tax changes helped make up for lost revenue from a business tax cut of $1.65 billion aimed at making the state more competitive and attractive to business. Gonet’s claim that Snyder’s “business friends” got a break while “all us retirees” got a hike is only partly true; the oldest saw their pension earnings remain exempt, and the homestead credit was only lost by certain homeowners and those households with more than a $50,000 income.
