(By Jerry Titus, Howard County Chair)
While the ‘traditional’ media brings you news of the General Assembly’s diligent efforts to trim and reform our State government, it appears that they’ve missed reporting on several new tax and revenue generating bills that have been introduced this session.
At the Libertarian Legislative Think Tank on Facebook, we’ve been diligently sorting through the 971 pieces of legislation filed this session. It’s slow going, but so far we’ve found several new taxes and revenue generation that we think our fellow Hoosiers should be aware of.
New Taxes
Senate Bill 356 increases the Local Option Income Tax Levy for Public Safety from .25% to .50% for all counties other than Marion county (which is all ready at the higher levy). Authored by Senator John Broden (D), District 10.
Senate Bill 31 introduces a new municipal income tax of 1%. Authored by Senator Randy Head, (R), District 18.
Senate Bill 53 The “County employment opportunity fee” bill introduces a .25% ‘commuter tax’ on out of county residents. Authored by Senator Jim Buck (R), District 21.
Revenue Generation
Senate Bill 30 gives Campus police officers statewide jurisdiction. Now, we can’t say that the intent of this bill is for revenue generation, (we aren’t quite sure why we need this legislation), but one thing is for sure if it passes, there will be a whole lot more ticket books statewide, to issue citations from. Authored by Senator Randy Head, (R), District 18.
Senate Bill 527 Introduces ‘Intersection safety systems’ legislation that enables local governments to include red light cameras at intersections. In other states these systems have been tremendous revenue generators, but have fallen far short of their stated purpose of ‘Intersection Safety’. Authored by Senator Jim Merritt (R), District 31.
That’s all that we’ve uncovered so far, likely there will be more. We’ll be sure to keep you informed as we find them. In the meantime, please join us in informing our legislators that when faced with decreased revenues, we expect our State and local governments to FIRST cut expenditures, rather than raise taxes or invent new revenue generation schemes.
Please visit this link to find and contact your legislators. If you’re on facebook, please look us up, we could use the help!