COLUMBUS, OH — Vivek Ramaswamy used his speech at an Ohio Chamber of Commerce event this week to double down on the top priority of his tax platform: an immediate elimination of Ohio's capital gains tax, followed by a gradual phase-out of the state income tax over the next decade, alongside a rollback of local property taxes. At the event he made the striking claim that eliminating the state's capital gains tax would "not leave a major hole" in Ohio's budget, calling the cost "only a few hundred million dollars."

Because Ohio taxes capital gains as regular income, carving out this massive exemption directly shrinks the State General Revenue Fund. This immediate multi-million-dollar revenue drop would automatically trigger a dual blow: shrinking state aid distributed to public school classrooms while draining the Local Government Fund that cities and counties rely on to pay for first responders. The non-partisan Ohio Legislative Service Commission found it would cost the state between $615 million and $645.6 million in the first year alone, growing to as much as $679.8 million the year after. Read Innovation Ohio Education Fund's report on the proposal here.

“To Vivek, more than half a billion dollars might sound like pocket change. But for most Ohioans, it's real money that funds real things: schools, public safety, mental health services, and the roads and bridges we drive on every day,” said Innovation Ohio President Michael McGovern. “We’ve seen Vivek’s plan to cut our way to prosperity tried before. The results in Kansas were so disastrous that even Republicans changed course. And after two decades of tax cuts for the rich and corporations, Ohioans’ health, wages and education are all worse than before. We can’t afford Vivek’s plan.”

The LSC's analysis also found the plan would do little for most Ohioans, because everyday workers earn their living through wages, not investments. Analysis shows that more than 81% of the benefit would go to Ohioans earning over $200,000 a year, while those earning under $100,000, a group that includes most Ohio households, would see just 7.3% of the benefit. It's the same trickle-down promise Ohio has heard before: cut taxes for those at the top, paid for by cuts to schools and other services we rely on or increases in sales or property taxes to make up the difference.

Ramaswamy's financial disclosure suggests he understands exactly who would benefit from his tax scheme. In tax year 2025 alone, Ramaswamy reported $768,968 in capital gains from the sale of BlackBerry stock, just one of tens of millions of dollars he holds in stocks, real estate, investment funds and equity positions in multiple companies, exactly the types of holdings that could be bought and sold tax free under the tax policy he’s proposing.

Ramaswamy has also proposed rolling back local property taxes to pre-pandemic levels, a change Innovation Ohio's analysis found would cut roughly $6.6 billion a year from Ohio schools, libraries, and emergency services once fully phased in.

"The people who benefit most from Vivek Ramaswamy's policies aren’t working Ohioans,” McGovern said. “It's Vivek Ramaswamy and the super-wealthy who are lining up to endorse him."