CONCORD – After years of legislative debate, it appears voters will get to weigh in on whether the state should make its lack of an income tax an article of its constitution.

The Senate voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to support constitutional amendment CACR 13, which would ban a personal state income tax. The vote was 20-4, well beyond than the three-fifths majority needed to put the measure on the 2012 ballot. The House passed its version of the amendment in January.

“One of the major reasons New Hampshire enjoys such an advantage over other states is our tax structure, and it’s a tax structure that’s critical to maintaining the New Hampshire we all know and love,” said Senate Majority Leader Jeb Bradley, R-Wolfeboro, ahead of the vote. “If voters approve of this, we will enshrine this advantage in our constitution.”

Two-thirds of voters must support the amendment for it to become law.

Opponents say the measure is short-sighted and will lead to ever-higher property and business taxes.

“To imagine we are going to lock ourselves in and envision what the state is going to be like 100 or 500 years from now, we would be making a dramatic mistake,” said Senate Minority Leader Sen. Sylvia Larsen, D-Concord.

The vote was on party lines, with one Democrat, Sen. Lou D'Allesandro of Manchester, breaking ranks to vote in favor of the amendment. He said after the vote that although he was personally opposed to the income tax ban, it was time to put the question to voters.

“We've debated the income tax amendment for hundreds of years, it's time to let the public decide,” he said.

The Senate amendment is similar to the House version passed in January, which states that “no new tax shall be levied upon a person’s income, from whatever source it is derived.”

One key change in the the Senate version is its use of the term “natural person,” which backers said is necessary to ensure that the ban does not apply to taxes on businesses, which legally have been considered persons.

Advocacy groups on both sides of the issue quickly reacted to the passage of amendment.

“The voters in this state sent a message in the 2010 elections that they supported restricting the government’s ability to raise taxes to fund unnecessary spending,” said Corey Lewandowski, state director of Americans for Prosperity-New Hampshire, in a statement. “We are pleased that our legislators in Concord chose to act responsibly in passing this legislation and returning power to the people they represent.”

However, Jeff McLynch, executive director of the New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute, which advocates for low and middle-income people, issued a statement saying, “This constitutional amendment is likely to trigger prolonged legal battles that will tie the hands of lawmakers for years to come, making it difficult, if not impossible, to address New Hampshire’s reliance on business or property taxes.”

The House must agree to the language of the amendment before it can be placed on the 2012 ballot.