(The Center Square) – When Gov. Tim Walz announced $1.63 billion in tax hikes to fuel his $52.4 billion proposed budget, he characterized the plan as taxing the rich to help the poor.

The proposal asks “large” corporations and the wealthiest Minnesotans to pay their “fair share” to help working families and small businesses. But John Phelan, an economist at the conservative American Experiment, warned that the tax incidence could fall on all Minnesotans.

Walz proposed a fifth-tier income tax rate for household incomes above $1 million or a single earner bringing in $500,000 or more, which would shift Minnesota from the fifth-highest income tax – 9.85% on taxable income over $164,400 a year — to the third-highest.