Mississippi’s Republican governor pushes income-tax cut, says critics rely on ‘myths’

FLOWOOD, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said Tuesday that legislators should ignore “myths” from opponents who want to block efforts by him and some other Republican leaders to phase out the state’s income tax.

“Getting rid of our state income tax, in my opinion, is the next step in continuing to unleash our full economic potential,” Reeves told a few hundred businesspeople, lobbyists, legislators and other elected officials at a conference in the Jackson suburb of Flowood.

Republican House Speaker Jason White set the daylong meeting for people to discuss potential tax cuts that the GOP-controlled state House and Senate could debate during the three-month legislative session that begins in January.

Mississippi, which has long been one of the poorest states in the U.S., is in the process of reducing its personal income tax under a law Reeves signed in 2022. The state will lower its top rate to 4% in two years.

In July, Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas signed legislation that will reduce her state’s income tax to 3.9%. Reeves has long said that Mississippi should eventually eliminate its income tax to compete with Florida, Tennessee and Texas, which don’t levy the tax.

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