Cosette is 8-years-old and recently became a Girl Scout. Here's why she joined, "You get to learn new friends, and you get to sell some cookies, and maybe eat some."
Girl Scout cookies sold in Idaho are one step closer to being tax-free. The House Revenue and Tax Committee unanimously agreed to send the new tax exemption proposal on for a vote in the full House.
Idaho Girl Scouts sell an estimated $2.5 million worth of their famed cookies each year, resulting in $140,000 in sales tax revenue for the state.
Rep. Robert Anderst (R-Nampa) voted in favor of the tax exemption, but wants the Legislature to think about dealing with exemptions differently, in a less piecemeal fashion.
The Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry's Alex LaBeau introduced a bill to phase out Idaho's personal property tax over a seven-year period.
The House Revenue and Taxation Committee voted this morning to introduce a second personal property tax bill, this one supported by the Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry (IACI), which represents business interests in the state. In doing so, the committee has set itself up for big decisions about whether and how to address the increasingly controversial tax this session.
IACI’s bill would eliminate the tax on business personal property. That’s in contrast to a bill presented yesterday by the Idaho Association of Counties’ Seth Grigg. That bill would exempt the first $100,000 worth of business personal property. It would also exempt all items with a purchase price of $1,500 or less, effective January 2013. Continue Reading →
The amount of money that came into Idaho’s main bank account in February exceeded expectations by nearly 20 percent. The Idaho Division of Financial Management published its monthly general fund revenue report today.
DFM says February’s receipts beat the forecast because of higher-than-expected revenue in each of Idaho’s main tax categories: individual income, corporate, sales, product and miscellaneous taxes.
Division of Financial Management / State of Idaho
Idaho individual income tax receipts of $27.2 million for the month were nearly twice the projected $14.7 million. Continue Reading →
Idaho’s latest proposal to create a state-based health insurance exchange has been approved by a House committee, and now heads to debate in the full chamber.
The Times-Newsreports the House Health and Welfare Committee approved the new exchange bill 10-1 after three hours of public testimony.
Thursday’s vote came after three hours of testimony, which started at 7 a.m. Lobbyists and members of the public testified, with more lobbyists testifying in favor of the exchange and more members of the public testifying against. Continue Reading →
The Idaho Association of Counties' Seth Grigg presented a plan to partially exempt Idaho's tax on business personal property.
Two months to the day after the start of the 2013 legislative session, a bill to partially exempt business personal property from taxation has been introduced. A second personal property tax bill may be presented as soon as tomorrow.
The House Revenue and Taxation Committee unanimously voted to print a bill that would exempt the first $100,000 worth of taxable business personal property. That $100,000 exemption would not apply to operating property holders, like utilities and railroads, which are assessed by the Idaho State Tax Commission. The bill would also exempt all items with a purchase price of $1,500 or less, effective January 2013. Continue Reading →
Public comment on the Idaho Legislature’s new health insurance exchange bill starts bright and early tomorrow morning. With signup starting at 6:30 a.m., interested citizens will have the chance give the House Health and Welfare Committee their opinion on the revamped bill that would create a state-based health insurance exchange.
As we reported Monday, the new bill combines Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter’s initial proposal that passed in the Senate, with more legislative oversight as requested by a group of 16 freshman legislators. The most noticeable change from the original Senate Bill 1042 to the new House Bill 248 is that three legislators will be appointed to the exchange’s oversight board.
StateImpact did this line-by-line comparison with the original version of the bill and the latest iteration. You’ll see the majority of the new text is on page 5. It’s there that House lawmakers included a section that explicitly says the insurance exchange can’t ask customers about their use, ownership, possession, or storage of any firearms or ammunition. Continue Reading →
StateImpact has reported on Idaho’s high rate of youth unemployment. We’ve also pointed out that unemployment rates vary according to workers’ educational backgrounds. So a post from Catherine Rampell at The New York Times‘ Economix blog that compares the unemployment rates of high-school-educated twenty-somethings to their college-educated peers caught our eye.
Rampell writes:
[T]he unemployment rate for people in their 20s with college degrees or more education was 5.7 percent (for those whose highest credential was no more than a bachelor’s, the number was 5.8 percent). Continue Reading →
Melinda Anderson shows off what will be a new downtown headquarters for dairy manufacturer Glanbia. It's a project aided by Twin Falls' urban renewal agency.
Urban renewal districts allow communities to leverage property tax dollars to support local economic development. There are more than 60 of them in Idaho. But this legislative session has brought fresh signs that, in some corners, urban renewal isn’t exactly popular – even as it supports the state’s most touted new company.
Former state representative Dennis Lake is a past chairman of the House Revenue and Taxation Committee.
In absence of a bill, the Idaho Legislature’s personal property tax discussion has played out behind closed doors so far this session. But former Representative Dennis Lake introduced a twist today when he went before his old committee to suggest a simple change to the definition of real and personal property.
“With the definitions we’re working under right now, the only thing that’s taxed as real property is the land, buildings, and some fixtures, such as air conditioning and heating, that’s in the building,” Lake explained as he presented his bill to the House Revenue and Taxation Committee. “But everything else — lights, electrical — is being treated as personal property.” Continue Reading →
The new bill has the same provisions of the first two bills, with one major addition: It adds three voting members to the Continue Reading →
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