Dear Neighbor,
Sections of the House’s supplemental budget plan are making their way through the process, including a tax bill which would provide relief for more than $2.1 million Minnesota filers.
The House’s overall tax plan simplifies Minnesota’s tax code to fully benefit from recent federal tax reform, while also providing a historic second-tier income tax reduction. That would be the first income tax rate cut in nearly 20 years.
Highlights of the bill include:
- Cutting the second tier income tax rate from 7.05 percent to 6.75 percent by tax year 2020.
- Lowering taxes for people at all income levels by increasing the standard deduction from $13,000 to $14,000.
- Protecting families by preserving a state personal and dependent exemption of $4,150.
- Encouraging affordable homeownership by allowing a state-itemized deduction of up to $30,000 in property taxes.
- Supporting hometown businesses and farmers by reinvesting extra revenue from corporate tax changes into Section 179 conformity and overall rate reductions.
While a tax incidence study shows the governor’s budget would raise taxes on Minnesotans of every income level, there are some other areas where we agree. We are awaiting details regarding what the Senate proposes.
An omnibus bill heavy on school safety provisions already has made it through the preliminary committee stages and received approval from the full House yesterday. Our goal is to provide schools with the resources and flexibility they need to make appropriate local decisions. That includes expanding the use of long-term facilities maintenance revenue for facility security upgrades, strengthening the state’s commitment to school-linked mental health grants, supporting suicide prevention training for teachers, increasing funding for Safe Schools Revenue, and more.
On another subject, Rep. Mary Kunesh Podein’s bill (HF 4273) to assist indigenous women continues moving through the process and, as a co-author, I am proud to continue helping to push it along. This bill would form a task force to study the reasons why indigenous women suffer an especially high rate of abuse and go missing more often than other ethnicities. This bipartisan bill is included in the State Government Finance Committee’s omnibus package this session and I hope it comes to pass so we can work toward solutions on this very complex issue.
Several bills I have proposed as the chief author also are advancing, including:
Ready for a vote of the full House
- Assignment of military pay and benefits (HF368): Prohibits agreements that would assign military pay or benefits to an individual who did not earn the pay or benefits. These types of agreements are prohibited by federal law but there is no enforcement mechanism. My bill fills this role and allows us to crack down on unscrupulous lenders who tap into veterans’ pension benefits.
- Purple Heart city/county (HF3477): The bill would encourage jurisdictions to designate themselves as Purple Heart cities and Purple Heart counties, and provide parking spaces at government building reserved for Purple Heart recipients.
Up for consideration in omnibus bills
- PCA fees (HF2940): Legislative approval required for water quality fees.
- Charitable gaming task force (HF3018): Some organizations pay more in taxes than they are able to pay out to the local charities they are working to support. This bill creates a task force to review the current taxes imposed on lawful gambling and identify the impacts modifications would have. The task force would be required to report its findings to the Legislature by Dec.15, 2018.
- BSU Hagg-Sauer (HF3063): Provides $22.5 million to fund the demolition of Hagg-Sauer Hall and design/construct a new Academic Learning Center on the same site. This funding will also renovate, furnish and equip space in Bangsberer Hall, Sattgast Hall, A.C. Clark Library, Bridgeman Hall and Bensen Hall.
- Lottery retail payments (HF3623): Requires the Minnesota State Lottery to increase retailer commissions. The last time the Lottery increased commissions was 1998, when retailers received a half percent bump (5 percent to 5.5 percent). The minimum wage has been raised by 80 percent since then and the increase this bill provides is necessary to help them keep pace with the rising costs of doing business in Minnesota.
- Attorney fee caps (HF3662): Imposes a limit of the greater of $100,000 or 2 percent of a settlement as part of contingent agreements for private attorneys working on behalf of the state. This is in response to a private firm receiving $125 million – approximately 14 percent – for its work on the 3M environmental case.
- Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (HF 3637): Appropriates $4.5 million to the Board of Trustees of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities for campus support to be allocated to the campuses.
- Hunter voter registration (H.F. 3377): Provides voter registration information on the DNR hunting and fishing license sales website. Voter registration information also is included in the printed and digital versions of fishing regulations and hunting and trapping regulations.
Have a good weekend and, as always, your thoughts on the issues are welcome. The end of the 2018 session is a little more than three weeks away, so I will do my best to keep you posted as things shake out at the Capitol.
Sincerely,
Matt