State Rep. Mike Harris criticized Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Attorney General Dana Nessel for attempting to block a permanent income tax cut that should soon take effect for Michiganders and small businesses.

Nessel published a formal opinion declaring that an automatic income tax cut, which will soon be triggered based on increased tax revenues, will only stay in effect for one year. The attorney general issued the opinion in response to a request from Rachael Eubanks, state treasurer in Whitmer’s administration.

Harris, R-Waterford, said the attorney general’s opinion is based on flawed legal reasoning. The move comes after Harris and fellow Republicans successfully defeated the governor’s legislative attempt to move money around and block the tax cut.

“This partisan opinion blatantly twists the law in order to raise taxes on Michigan residents and small businesses,” Harris said. “Gov. Whitmer already attempted shuffling money around to block the income tax rollback altogether, but my Republican colleagues and I stopped that trick. Now the governor and attorney general have pivoted to intentionally misreading the law in order to place a ticking-time bomb on the tax cut and blow it up after a year.”

Harris noted that the law’s framers designed the statute in 2015 to trigger permanent income tax cuts. The nonpartisan House Fiscal Agency observed at the time that the trigger mechanism would result in permanent reductions to the income tax rate.

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