Street Fee Town Hall

itizens concerned over street fees proposed by the Portland City Council gathered at a town hall meeting earlier this year. Mayor Charlie Hales and Commissioner Steve Novick will discuss the latest proposals on Monday with the full council.

(Michael Lloyd)

If the Portland City Council approves an income tax on residents for street maintenance and safety projects, 41 percent of tax filers wouldn't pay a dime.

Portland commissioners will discuss the latest incarnation of transportation funding plan in a two-hour public work session on Monday.

According to data The Oregonian obtained through a public records request, each of three income tax scenarios currently under scrutiny by city bureaucrats would exempt more than 100,000 Portland taxpayers from paying anything.

Where the three plans vary is in how they spread the burden among middle and top income earners.

The most progressive tax scenario includes a maximum payment of $2,400 per year for the city's top income earners. Under that plan, fewer than 3 percent of tax filers would contribute 45 percent of the revenue from residential payers.

Businesses would pay a separate fee based on a different set of factors.

Monday's hearing will be the first time since late May that the City Council as a whole will take on the controversial proposal floated earlier this year by Mayor Charlie Hales and Commissioner Steve Novick to create a new revenue stream for pavement and safety projects.

The reconfigured plans, which won't go before the council for a formal vote until mid-November, call for a business fee and an income tax on residents. The expected gross revenue of the latest proposal is $40 million, down from the $53 million plan brought to the City Council in May.

About $20 million would come from the business fee and $20 million from the personal income tax.

Each of the three tax options sets a different rate for various tax brackets as well as a maximum monthly cap for the highest wage earners.

Novick said he "personally prefers" the tax proposal with a $200 monthly cap, because it would limit the effect on middle-income earners. "It's a lot harder to ask people whose income is not going up to pay more," Novick said.

In a text message, Novick continued that he believes $200 a month means less to people earning $500,000 a year than $12 per month for $50,000 earners.

Who bears the brunt of the income tax changes depending on how high the city's monthly cap is.

If the cap were set at $20 per month, 65 percent of the bill would be footed by 45 percent of tax filers: singles with adjusted gross income of $25,000 to $85,000, or joint filers earning between $30,000 and $100,000.

If the monthly cap were $100 per month, that same group would account for just 28 percent of the total revenue.

Take a look at this visualization to get a sense of how the plans split up the costs.