Dear Neighbor,
It’s been another busy week in St. Paul, with the House spending most of its time in committee meetings moving bills through the first stages of the legislative process.
The biggest news from the House floor this week was overwhelming passage of a bill which fixed a big mistake in last year’s omnibus tax bill, but also left another error unresolved. Here’s the latest on that and some other notes:
Partial fix of tax bill
The House this week passed a bill to fix a mistake in last year’s omnibus tax bill. The good news is, once this bill is enacted, many Minnesotans will see their income tax returns improve. Without this correction, the Department of Revenue estimates it would cost Minnesotans an additional $352 million starting in tax year 2024.
On the other hand, many other Minnesotans are poised to suffer an unnecessary tax hit because Democrats decided to NOT fix another one of their mistakes in last year’s tax bill. The majority chose not to fix the effective date of a Net Operating Loss provision, which will cost Minnesotans $15 million barring further action by the Legislature. The legislative intent last year was to make this provision effective for tax year 2024. However, the 2023 tax bill contained an effective date of tax year 2023 and the majority refused to make this simple fix.
The kicker is tax chairs in the House and the Senate both signed a letter to state officials last June pledging to correct the effective date at the earliest possible opportunity. They had their chance this week but didn’t follow through. Let’s hope we can revisit this issue on the floor soon to protect taxpayers and make filing season smoother and less costly.
National FFA Week
I would like to recognize our local Future Farmers of America chapters as we make our way through National FFA Week. This is a fantastic organization dedicated to helping our youth develop leadership skills, personal growth, and career success. I look forward to meeting with FFA students when they make their annual visit to the Capitol next week.
Here some info illustrating just how crucial agriculture is to our state economy:
- The Minnesota Department of Agriculture indicates our state ranks No. 6 in the nation in agricultural production, with $26 billion in agricultural sales per year.
- Minnesota’s combined agriculture, food processing, and forestry industries contribute over 15 percent of Minnesota’s total economic activities and support over 10 percent of all jobs.
- The overall impacts of Minnesota’s agricultural production, processing, and forestry industries generate nearly $106 billion annually in total economic impacts and support 388,134 jobs.
Precinct caucuses
This year’s precinct caucuses will take place at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 27. These meetings provide Minnesotans with the opportunity to participate in grassroots politics. The more people we have involved in this process, the better and I hope you can attend. The Minnesota Secretary of State website has a statewide Caucus Finder page to help citizens find their meeting locations.
What's ahead
I hope we soon are able to report passage of legislation to fix the school resource officers issue that is compromising safety in Minnesota schools.
We are scheduled to receive the February economic forecast next week, which will serve as the fiscal framework for decisions the rest of this session. It will be interesting to see how the state’s bottom line now stands after the majority spent the $17.5 billion surplus, increased taxes by $10 billion and raised state spending by 40 percent last year. The last full forecast showed a shortfall in the next two-year cycle.
Until next time, have a good weekend and please stay in touch.
Sincerely,
Dean