McCrory expresses skepticism about long-term tax reform plans

Gov. Pat McCrory told reporters today that he was eager for tax reform negotiations to conclude, but he did not place faith in long-term tax projections.

Posted 10:40 p.m. Jul 8, 2013 — Updated 8:53 p.m. Jul 9, 2013

Mark Binker

RALEIGH, N.C. — Gov. Pat McCrory said Monday that it is not up to him to set a deadline for lawmakers to craft budget and tax deals.

"I have not given a specific deadline, and I think that would be presumptuous of me, knowing there are many other issues on the plate," McCrory said during a news conference with reporters at the executive mansion. "But I do think, as long as this holds up the budget from being done, they do need to get moving one way or the other."

That said, McCrory expressed skepticism that either the legislature or executive branch economists could reliably predict the flow of revenue beyond 2015.

Both the House and Senate have drawn tax reform proposals that would trigger changes in the tax code in 2016, 2017 and 2018. The Senate plan, for example, would phase out the state corporate income tax rate in 2017.

"I do think its unreasonable to project after the year 2015, especially with some of the growth analysis that have been presented in several of the plans," McCrory said. "Anything beyond 2015, I think, is very speculative."

McCrory said that tax reform should be "revenue neutral," meaning that the new plan raises roughly the same amount of money as the current system. If there are other goals, such as cutting the overall amount of taxes raised, he said, those should be separate issues.

"I do think there is an opportunity to come to a conclusion where we can get a bill up to 2015, and then we can have points of looking at how the economy is doing and determining how to proceed after 2015," he said.

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