Gov. Greg Abbott says he wants to bury the idea of a personal state income tax permanently, by entombing it inside the state constitution itself. "Currently," tweeted Abbott Tuesday night, the state constitution, "says an income tax can be imposed by a majority vote of Texans. If we omit that from the constitution it takes a 2/3 vote to add it back in."
The Dallas Morning News reports that the election-year pledge by the governor announced the proposal at a Republican rally held in McKinney on Monday.
In 1993, the Texas Constitution was amended to take the power to levy such a tax away from lawmakers and give it to voters; an income tax can only be imposed, Article 8 of the Constitution says, if it's approved by a majority of registered voters in a statewide referendum and any net revenues must used for the "support of education."
A new constitutional amendment to wholly ban an income tax would require a two-thirds vote by both the House and Senate and approval of a majority of voters.
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