About $104 million will go toward tax relief this fiscal year with the passing of the Green Affordability Plan.
Gov. Josh Green signed the legislation last week, which doubles the earned income tax credit and increases tax breaks for some working families. The measure also increases the income thresholds and credit amounts of the refundable food and excise tax credit.
Theoriginal Green Affordability Plan featured more sweeping structural changes to the state's tax code, but those did not end up in the final product.
Luis Salaveria, the state’s Department of Budget and Finance director, said tax code discussions will continue during the interim, like indexing and increasing the personal exemptions.
"I think some of the structural things that we did was doubling the personal income tax deductions, as well as indexing and creating inflationary adjustments towards the tax bracket code," Salaveria said. "Those are the things that we wanted to make and actually incorporate and institutionalize beyond just the individual credits."
The credits are under a five-year sunset period so the state can look at the efficacy, Salaveria said.
"Over time, we'd like to move more toward about $250 million in tax breaks," Green said. "That's what phase two will look like."
