The Senate is now taking up HB 315, the personal property tax relief bill. Though this was highly controversial earlier in the session – when a much farther-reaching bill was proposed by IACI – this measure passed the House a week ago on a 67-2 vote and zipped unanimously through the Senate’s tax committee. The measure, like an earlier one first passed in 2008 but never implemented, exempts the first $100,000 in business equipment for each taxpayer, in each county, from the tax; the total cost to the state is about $20 million to make up the lost revenue to local governments and schools at current-year levels.