Amendment C Would Be A Huge Win for South Dakota Taxpayers

South Dakotans have the opportunity to protect their hard-earned money from out-of-state special interest groups. On June 7th, they will have the chance to support a measure that would make it harder to raise taxes. If approved, this measure would be a huge win for all residents of the Mount Rushmore State.

Constitutional Amendment C would raise the vote threshold for any ballot measure that creates or raises taxes, increases or imposes fees, or spends more than $10 million in the first five years from a simple majority (50%) to a super majority (60%). This taxpayer safeguard would bring tax increases on the ballot more in line with tax increases introduced in the legislature, which require 2/3 support (67%) for approval.

“It should be difficult to raise taxes. Taxes last forever, a simple majority is not good enough,” said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. “Billionaires from other states could fund an effort to raise taxes and with 51% could saddle all of South Dakota with a tax increase for decades in the future. We’re protected from the legislature doing it with a simple majority, we need to be protected from an initiative campaign that can win with 51% of the vote.”

Right now, South Dakota has a glowing reputation as a taxpayer friendly state. It is one of nine states that do not impose taxes on wage income and one of only two states that do not impose a corporate income tax nor a gross receipts tax. 

Amendment C would help South Dakota remain this way by making it much harder for out-of-state liberal billionaires and special interest groups to impose economically harmful policies. Arizona provides a recent example of this concern and shows why Amendment C is so important.

In 2020, Arizona voters narrowly approved a measure that, had it not been struck down by the courts, would have imposed permanent $1 billion income tax hike. This measure, Proposition 208, would have created a new 3.5 “surcharge” on certain income taxpayers, resulting in Arizona having a top income tax rate of 8%. Arizona would have had the unwelcome distinction of being home to the 10^th highest income tax rate in the country and the second highest income tax rate in the region.

Adding insult to injury, the backers of Prop. 208, which were primarily out-of-state, misled the public on the true impact of this “surcharge.” They continued to claim that it would only affect high earning individuals when in fact roughly 50% of those who would have been forced to pay the tax were small businesses.

Amendment C, by requiring a 60% to raise taxes, would protect South Dakota taxpayers from harmful measures such as Prop. 208. This would keep out-of-state special interests and billionaires from harming individual taxpayers, families, and small businesses across South Dakota.