To the Editor:

Are you better off now than you were, say, a year ago? For most of us that depends on whether the bank account is larger and we have more money in our wallets. In North Carolina, that depends on how much money you make.  

This year, we all got a cut in our income taxes. Near the bottom of the income scale, your taxes went down about 0.2 percent, so you may not have noticed. In the middle of the scale the decrease was about 1.2 percent, and the top earners saved almost 2 percent on income taxes. However, if you’re among the working poor and used the Earned Income Tax Credit in the past, forget it because the GOP legislature repealed it. 

Have you noticed that you’re spending more on your kid’s school supplies? It got worse this year when the tax holiday for school supplies was repealed. If your child is in college, their meal plan is now taxed for the first time. You also lost the deduction for your college savings plan.

You also now pay sales taxes on your electric and natural gas bills for the first time. Same for movie tickets, concerts and shopping at a farmers market.

Retired on a pension? You lost that deduction. Own a farm? You lost a bunch of deductions this year, and even more if your farm income is less than $10,000.

Trying to get ahead with a small business outside of your usual work? The $50,000 exclusion for that income is gone.

Planning on buying a modular or mobile home? You’ll now pay the full sales tax rate and the $300 cap on that tax is gone. 

With the “tax reform” that our Republican legislators gave us, the break-even point is about $80,000. If you make less than that, you pay more taxes; if you make more than that, you pay less.  That $80,000 is more than twice what half of households in Cherokee, Clay, Haywood, Jackson, Macon and Swain counties bring home in a year.  

And they thought you wouldn’t notice!

John Gladden

Franklin