The House Ways & Means Committee has voted unanimously to introduce the new personal property tax bill from the Idaho Association of Counties; the new bill has a total cost to the state of $20 million a year. It would, like the earlier counties bill, exempt the first $100,000 in business property in each county from the tax for each taxpayer. In changes from the earlier bill, it would include operating property, and it would double the “de minimus” exemption for newly purchased property from the $1,500 in the earlier bill to $3,000. It also streamlines the application process for the exemption.