March 20 was the first committee deadline, and what a contrast between this year and last year. With the change in power in the House, our agenda is almost entirely positive, and there have been few negative bills moving through the process that NFIB is involved with. For the most part, legislators do honor the deadline. As of Friday, all bills are supposed to have passed through all policy committees they were referred to and either reach the floor or the finance or tax committee. However, nothing is dead for sure in Minnesota, and legislators can always bring up defeated bills on the floor in the form of an amendment. Below is a brief update of the issues NFIB is involved in in the 2015 session.
HOUSE MAJORITY PROPOSES HUGE TAX RELIEF!
The new House majority has set their budget targets for the 2016-2017 two-year budget, and they just proposed $2 billion in total tax relief! This is incredibly encouraging news, and it shows the new House majority wants to return all of the recently projected $1.9 billion surplus to taxpayers.
Hopefully this will be the year to finally conform Minnesota’s general estate tax exemption to the federal. We are phasing in to only a $2 million per person general exemption starting in 2018, and the federal is currently at $5.43 million per person. Their tax bill will hopefully also include a small business income tax cut and a reduction or at least a freeze in the growth of the statewide portion of the commercial property tax and likely other positive provisions. Their proposal is quite a contrast to Gov. Mark Dayton, who proposed spending virtually all of the large projected budget surplus. The Senate disappointingly prepaid only $200 million in the reductions, setting up another showdown on the budget.
Sincerely,
Mike Hickey
NFIB Minnesota State Director
