BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Lawmakers digging into the details of Gov. Bobby Jindal's plan to restructure Louisiana's tax code said Tuesday that his administration needs to do a better job selling the tax plan to the public.
During a House committee meeting, some said their constituents are calling to express worry that Jindal's proposal to get rid of income tax and raise sales tax will end up costing them.
Revenue department leader Tim Barfield, the governor's point man on the tax rewrite, started walking members of the House Ways and Means Committee through Jindal's proposal. He gave them the first specific lists outlining what new items would be subject to sales taxes and what sales tax breaks would be removed.
Jindal wants to eliminate personal and corporate income taxes without shrinking the revenue available for state programs and services.
To offset the loss of $3 billion, Jindal proposes to increase state sales taxes from 4 percent to 5.88 percent and add state sales taxes to an array of currently untaxed items, like haircuts, cellphone purchases, museum visits, accounting services and cable TV.
Lawmakers will decide the proposal's fate in the regular session that begins April 8.
Rep. Joel Robideaux, an accountant who will sponsor the tax bills for the governor, said working families would benefit from Jindal's tax plan under every scenario he's been able to devise.
But he added, "The message is clearly not out there, based on the phone calls we're getting in our districts now. (The callers are saying,) 'This seems terrible. This doesn't make sense.'"
Critics of the plan say it would place higher tax burdens on the poor and middle-class, making them pay a larger share of their income to support government services. A coalition of more than 250 religious leaders submitted a letter to the governor opposing the plan as an unjust burden on low- and middle-income residents.
The House committee members pushed for more information from Barfield so they could explain the tax swap to residents back home and determine if it's better for businesses and families as the governor claims.
Rep. Major Thibaut, D-New Roads, said people want to get rid of income taxes but worry when they hear about the sales tax increases, which would make Louisiana's combined average local and state sales tax the highest in the nation.
Barfield said the Department of Revenue will soon roll out a website that lets people compute what the tax changes would mean for them.
"We have not spent enough time getting the message out. This is a big win for working class families in Louisiana, and it's a big win for economic development and job creation in Louisiana," he said.
Barfield has said most people would see a tax break under the plan, while businesses would pay more to keep the plan "revenue neutral."
He said the change would give businesses more stability in deciding how and when they pay taxes because they can determine which goods and services they can buy. Also, he said it would simplify a tax code riddled with exemptions that are difficult for businesses to navigate.
"That sounds good, and I'm for all that stuff," Thibaut said. "But what's not resonating at home is when people read we're going to have the highest sales tax."
Lawmakers also questioned the data used to devise the governor's plan and began combing through individual items included in it.
Rep. Jeff Thompson, R-Bossier City, questioned why the administration proposed getting rid of sales tax holidays for hurricane preparedness, school supplies and guns and outdoor equipment.
"I would ask that you look into that. Although that's not a big number, it's a meaningful number to families," Thompson said.
MAY 24 Blogger Robert Mann posts this entry about the Baton Rouge Chamber's recent report on Louisiana's higher education system. It's critical to economic development, and yet our system is facing a "funding crisis" with no way to resolve it, the report says. The Chamber says control of tuition and fees must be returned to the higher ed governing boards.
MAY 24 Here's a NBC33 story about Tyrann Mathieu. He has signed with the Arizona Cardinals, inking a $3 million, four-year deal. He gets a signing bonus of $265K, but gets another, larger bonus if he doesn't get cut from the team for doing drugs. The deal reportedly includes mandatory tests and meetings for the player.
MAY 24 Jarvis DeBerry posts here about the redonkulus rhetoric that would have us believe NOLA is a safe city with a murder problem. Maybe the city's crime stats don't compare with its murder stats because you can't manipulate a murder, he says: a dead body's a dead body. It just doesn't make sense, he says, and his readers agree: a poll asks if they believe the city is safe, and more than 90 percent say no.
MAY 24 Jindal administration officials announced Thursday that the privatization of public health care is going to cost a lot more than they budgeted for, the Advocate reports here. "I'm so surprised," said no one. Anywhere. The cost they're projecting now is more than $1 billion - a lot more than the $626 million budgeted for it. And, it's more than it cost the state to operate those hospitals. So why are we doing this again?
MAY 24 Blogger CB Forgotston ridicules the recent PR campaign by the state GOP in the wake of a legislative auditor's request to both major parties. The GOP (apparently unaware that the Dems got the same request) started yammering about being targeted because it had "killed" a tax increase. CB finds that laughable, but it's also pretty funny that the GOP was comparing this episode to the IRS scandal (Because the President has so much to do with our state auditor. Right?).
MAY 24 Politico details some recent fund-raising efforts by Sen. David Vitter, which have raised the question of his future political plans. This time, it is a $5,000 per head "bayou weekend" that includes "Cajun cooking" and an all-caps "alligator hunt," the story reports. Funds raised go to a super PAC that can spend money to support Vitter in federal or state races, the story points out.
MAY 24 The pink building on Royal in the quarter was sold at a sheriff's sale Thursday, this Picayune story reports. An injunction that would have halted the sale wasn't enforced because the family failed to post a $150,000 bond, the story reports. So the owner of the mortgages on the building bought it, for nearly $7 million. Now the feuding family will have to negotiate with that company to get a lease on the building that has housed their business for close to 60 years.
MAY 23 This post in Louisiana Voice tells us about a bill by a Winnsboro lege that would require all public high school students to take at least one Course Choice online class in order to graduate. (What?) Blogger Tom Aswell says it's a monument to "waste and corruption," especially in light of the problems he's exposed with the program in recent weeks. Idaho had a similar program, but voters removed it by a 2-1 margin, Aswell says.
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Doe's the Jindal plan increase gasoline taxes?
Well, Robideaux what's the answer? Yes or No?