The Income Tax Cap Amendment Limits Your Power and Makes the Rich Richer

Every North Carolinian has their income taxed at exactly the same rate. One of the three constitutional amendments on your ballot would permanently cap that rate at 3.49%.

That cap will lock in the currently scheduled drop from 3.99% to 3.49%. Our research projects that the top 10% of earners in North Carolina will save $710 million per year while the median North Carolina household saves just $26 per month.

Our new tool allows you to explore what you would save, compare it to North Carolina’s top earners, and model the loss in teachers paid, classrooms built, roads paved, or pre-K students served.

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The median individual income is $38,679 and the median household income is $73,958, according to Census data.

Households or individuals filing with more than:

$176,820 in income are in the top 10% of NC earners

$254,574 in income are in the top 5% of NC earners

$581,233 in income are in the top 1% of NC earners

Personal income tax supplied 48.9% of the state’s General Fund in FY25-26 and is expected to make up 47.9% of the FY26-27 General Fund. The General Fund includes K-12, community college, and university education, health and human services, prisons, and most of the state’s other core functions.

It takes the support of 30 NC Senators and 72 NC House Reps to place a constitutional amendment on the ballot. The current amendments achieved that support only under deeply gerrymandered legislative maps, making it unlikely that future legislatures elected with fair maps could successfully revisit this decision.

If passed, this amendment will limit future voters and future legislators’ ability to recover from natural disasters, like Hurricane Helene, or economic disasters, like the 2008 financial crash and the COVID-19 pandemic.

The income tax cap will also hamper the state’s ability to respond to citizens if they demand new statewide programs and services, like cheaper healthcare, better school and sports facilities, or big infrastructure projects, like a statewide flood mitigation and stormwater management fund.