LEWISTON – Charlie Webster, chairman of the Maine Republican Party, said he has filed a people’s veto application to repeal the entire new tax law, including the portion that reduces the state income tax from 8.5 percent to 6.5 percent for most Mainers.

Earlier this week, Webster said he would seek only to repeal the part of the legislation that expanded the sales tax base and increased the meals and lodging tax.

But Julie Flynn, the deputy secretary of state, said Thursday that the application seeks to repeal the law in its entirety. Webster confirmed that Friday morning.

“We didn’t have the resources to hire an attorney to re-figure the whole thing; it didn’t make sense,” Webster said. “We just think that the average guy is going to lose with this law.”

Webster called the tax package an “attack on the working people of Maine.”

The law pays for the income tax cut by extending the state’s 5 percent sales tax to previously untaxed goods and services, such as movie tickets, miniature golf and labor on auto repairs. It also raises the state meals and lodging tax from 7 percent to 8.5 percent.

Arden Manning, executive director of the Maine Democratic Party, said Republicans are sending mixed signals about their effort.

“It shows they are out of touch; I think most Mainers are very happy to have a reduction in their income tax in this economy,” Manning said. “It just doesn’t make sense with what Republicans have been talking about, even nationally, for the last 10 years about cutting taxes.”

Webster said that after having an accountant review the law, certain aspects of the income tax reduction language were found to be unacceptable, particularly certain interest deductions eliminated from the tax code.

“We decided it made more sense and it was easier just to repeal the whole thing,” he said.

Webster said he’s courting organizations to join him in a coalition, including business groups and “even some groups in Portland who advocate for the poor.”

“There will be a (political action committee) formed next week, and people will have somewhere to donate money to, because it’s going to cost at least something,” he said. “We’re assuming we’re going to call it ‘Still Fed Up With Taxes.'”

Fed Up With Taxes was the name of the successful campaign last fall to overturn a state beverage tax.

Manning said that would be an interesting name for the campaign.

“Essentially, you’re voting to raise the income tax and saying you’re fed up with taxes,” he said.

Asked if he thought it would be difficult to get people to sign on to something that would raise their income tax, Webster said, “No, what I tell people is to read the bill.”

Senate Minority Leader Kevin Raye, R-Perry, and House Minority Leader Josh Tardy, R-Newport, also signed on to the application for the repeal vote.

Petitioners would have to collect 55,087 valid signatures from Maine voters and submit them to state officials by mid-September to get a repeal question on a ballot. In order to get the question to voters this fall, the signatures would likely have to be turned in at the beginning of August.