Important Tax Filing Information from Rep. Rosenthal

Dear Neighbors,

It has been an especially busy session, and I wanted to take a moment to update you on some of the issues I’ve been working on at the legislature.

Tax Cuts for Minnesotans

The House began the first week of session this year by passing a repeal bill to end unnecessary warehousing and business-to-business sales taxes.  As a co-chair of the Small Business Caucus in the House, I worked with several other members of both parties to make sure that telecommunications equipment taxes, machinery repair sales taxes, and warehousing taxes were repealed this session.  I was the chief author of the bill to repeal telecommunications equipment taxes (HF 2180) and a co-author of many other business tax repeal bills in this legislation.

We also passed federal conformity as part of that tax repeal bill. Conforming Minnesota’s tax code to federal tax law makes tax filing easier for Minnesotans and qualified over 1 million residents of our state for $225 million in increased tax relief.  On Friday, we were finally able to act on the complete amended tax cut package that was sent to us by the Senate.  We passed the bill the same day with bipartisan support to cut taxes by $430 million and sent it to Governor Dayton for signing. 

Important Tax Filing Information

Because this tax relief package was passed before April 15^th, the Minnesota Department of Revenue is working hard to make these tax cuts available to Minnesotans who have not yet filed their 2013 tax returns.  The Department of Revenue will update all of their internal and online systems by April 3, 2014.  They will also be working closely with online vendors who process returns to make sure that their software is updated to correctly process returns for potentially increased tax refunds.

If you have not yet filed your 2013 taxes, you should wait until after April 3, 2014 to do so.

• The Department of Revenue will have their online systems updated by then to account for tax refund changes. 
• You can keep updated with changes at the Department of Revenue’s website by clicking on the orange button at the bottom of their home page:

If you have already filed your 2013 taxes, you don’t need to do anything currently. 

• The Department of Revenue will be mailing refunds as usual and then reviewing returns that they received before the changes went into effect. 
• They will be doing this review after the April 15^th tax deadline and then sending out any refund increase by whatever means you elected to receive your refund. 
• If you are eligible for an increased refund, the Department of Revenue will be able to make the necessary changes to your return with the tax documents you provided.  If they are unable to do so, they will individually contact you by postal mail to request necessary documents to amend your return.  
• The Department of Revenue will also be communicating all tax refund changes and updates to CPA’s and tax preparers around the state. 

If you have questions or concerns about this process or any tax changes please contact me at 651-296-7803 or rep.paul.rosenthal@house.mn

Sincerely,

Paul Rosenthal
State Representative