Anchorage homeless men say they were paid to display signs protesting income tax

An unidentified man paid a pair of homeless people to wave signs in Midtown Anchorage opposing the Alaska House majority's income tax proposal, one of the sign-wavers said Wednesday.

"Some guy just came up to us and said, 'You want to make some money?'" said one of the sign-wavers, who declined to give his name. His sign — red with white block lettering — said "Income tax/Tuck you," an apparent reference to Anchorage Democratic Rep. Chris Tuck, the House majority leader.

The other sign-waver, who identified himself only as Travis, 26, held his own sign that said "1/2 PFD + income tax = fools deal." The two men stood next to the Tesoro gas station at one of Anchorage's busiest intersections, at the corner of Northern Lights Boulevard and the Seward Highway.

Tuck, in a brief phone interview Wednesday, said people had been waving the signs since Tuesday afternoon, when a friend sent him a text message with a photo.

"It's a cheap ploy to try to single out some of our members," Tuck said. He said he had "no idea" who distributed the signs.

The largely Democratic House majority is proposing to close the state's $2.5 billion deficit by restructuring the Permanent Fund — with a side effect of reducing PFDs — along with reinstating a state income tax, which would take more from high-earners.

[Alaska House votes to levy statewide income tax, sending measure to a hostile Senate]

The Republican-led Senate majority prefers to draw cash from the state's savings accounts instead of adopting the income tax, though House majority members argue that such a plan wouldn't ask enough from wealthy Alaskans. Dividend reductions would hit poor Alaskans hardest, since the payments make up a greater share of their income.

Travis, who's Alaska Native, said he was approached Wednesday by a man who offered him $20 to wave the signs for a few hours. Travis said he agreed with the message on his sign and hoped to use the money to buy more than a single day's worth of food. Both men said they were homeless.

"A lot of us people are poor and struggling to survive and feed our families," he said. "It feels like we're just being cheated."

Travis was surprised to hear, however, that the income tax likely wouldn't affect him, since it would only kick in when a person's earnings exceed $14,300.

An official at the Alaska Public Offices Commission, Tom Lucas, said the signs — which omitted a disclaimer saying who paid for them — don't conflict with the state's campaign finance laws.

The House's income tax proposal, which the Senate voted down last month, has already faced several campaigns attacking it — from the state chamber of commerce, from investor Bob Gillam and from an anonymous mailer sent across the state in April.

A business-backed conservative group, Prosperity Alaska, kicked off its own campaign against the tax proposal this week with a flyer that was expected to land in mailboxes starting Wednesday.

It depicts Gov. Bill Walker — who's pushed for a broad-based tax like the House's plan, but also says he'd be open to other proposals — with his head atop a suit made of $100 bills. And it says Bill "Tax Man" Walker and his "tax-and-spend gang," which includes six House majority members, are Alaska taxpayers' "public enemy No. 1."