South Carolina Senate wants accelerated income tax cut while House looks at property tax rebate

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The South Carolina Senate started debating a budget Tuesday that accelerates a planned income tax cut instead of the House plan to use $500 million to give homeowners a one-time property tax rebate.

Once the spending plan passes the Senate, a group of three House members and three senators — likely including the leaders of each chamber’s budget committee — is going to have to sort out the differences over the next month or so with the tax break and other items in South Carolina’s $15.4 billion spending plan for next budget year.

Republican Senate Finance Committee Chairman Harvey Peeler has called the competing tax breaks a wonderful problem to have in the 2024-25 fiscal year budget, which again left lawmakers with a substantial pot of additional money to spend.

But Peeler has left little doubt he thinks spending $100 million to knock the income tax rate most people pay in the state from 6.3% to 6.2% is the right move, saying it lasts forever compared to a one-year drop in property tax. The state is in the middle of a five-year effort to cut its top income tax rate from 7% to 6%.