Dear Neighbor,
Today the House passed legislation that brings Minnesota’s tax code in alignment with some provisions of the federal tax code in tax year 2013, with the other major provisions starting in 2014. This bill also repeals the sales tax on commercial/industrial repair, warehousing and telecommunications machinery and equipment starting April 1, 2014.
While I’m happy the legislature finally was able to provide some certainty for the taxpayers of Minnesota, I’m disappointed we waited until mid-March to fix these problems with the April deadline to file taxes quickly approaching. The 2013 Omnibus Tax Bill that raised $2.1 billion on hardworking Minnesotans should never have been enacted in the first place. I – along with all of my House Republican colleagues – voted against that job-killing piece of legislation. Even after the session was over, several of my Republican colleagues called for a quick special session to repeal the onerous business-to-business taxes that were slipped into bill at the last minute. Unfortunately, that never occurred.
While the bill passed today is a good start, it falls woefully short considering there is a $1.2 billion surplus. Notably absent items:
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Increased Standard Deduction for married joint filers which would have saved 640,000 married couples an average of $112 per return for tax year 2013.
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Retroactive repeal of business-to-business sales tax that went into effect in 2013 which would have returned $55.9 million to hardworking Minnesota taxpayers.
These are not tax cuts that the House passed today. The net result of the adjustments in this bill is still a $1.7 billion tax increase for the biennium.
Still, I wish we could have acted sooner. I was dispirited to learn that the reason for the delay was due to an internal dispute among Democrat legislative leaders about a wasteful, lavish, $90 million office complex for state senators. We should be prioritizing the family budgets of our citizens over new buildings for politicians. Minnesotans expect better of their elected leaders.
As always, I am interested in your feedback. Please feel free to contact me by e-mail at Rep.Kathy.Lohmer@House.MN or contact my office at 651-296-4244. You can also send mail to my office address: 239 State Office Building, 100 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., St. Paul, MN 55155.
Sincerely,
Kathy