Earners and savers.

If either describes you, then the taxation reform plan before the Maine Legislature is musical, as reduced taxes on your income will mean more funds directed into your bank account. This is a good thing.

Homeowners should benefit too. The elderly especially, through a laudable tax-deferral plan, others through increased Homestead exemptions and Circuit Breaker credits, and a reduced tax on capital gains after a home sale. (Though traditional mortgage interest deductions would go, and the real estate transfer tax would increase.)

This is also good.

Ninety-six percent of Mainers, in fact, are expected to see their taxes reduced, if the state’s plan to flatten the income tax to 6 percent (down from 8.5), fund $50 million in property tax relief, and broaden the sales tax base is approved. The House has given its preliminary support.

It’s a strong proposal. Reducing the income tax rate will put money in Mainers’ pockets, and instill much-needed flexibility into the state’s tax codes, and stability to its revenue stream. For earners and savers, a phrase bandied during a news conference on the plan, the proposed simplification and rejuvenation of taxation is a blessing.

Not all Mainers, though, are earners and savers.

All, however, are spenders.

And the proposed savings for middle-income Maine families – a few hundred dollars per year off income and property taxes, according to state projections – could erode under the new sales taxes on everyday goods and services: Movie tickets. Dining out. Gym memberships. Museums. Driveway sealing. Snow plowing, etc.

Against this, the average Maine family can blow away a few hundred bucks like a landscaper does leaves (a service also taxed under the plan). When legislators tout their proposal as revenue-neutral, this isn’t what they mean.

Which makes its promised, positive impact on business the measure of its success. The plan is said to flow $96 million back into Maine businesses, according to the committee, a point lustily illustrated by Sen. Peter Mills, D-Somerset County, on Wednesday.

The plan is the “most powerful inducement to business expansion you can imagine,” Mills said, on the heels of decrying other incentives – like tax incremental financing and Pine Tree Zones – as gimmicks. Tax reform, he added, is “the most powerful gimmick.”

Strong words, which Mills and all Mainers should hope are true, for while the plan is good for state government, by stabilizing revenue and exporting some burden, its impact on Maine’s working people – those who earn an average annual salary of $34,000, have less ability to save, but must consume – is unclear.

For this picture to sharpen, tax reform must precede concerted efforts to reduce government spending, an evergreen taxpayer demand, or, more important, rising incomes among Maine’s working class, as the end product of a warming economic climate.

Proponent members say this sensible, bipartisan tax reform plan can deliver the latter.

For the plan to provide meaningful tax relief to Maine’s working people, it must.