Tax Working Group adjourns for day, will meet Dec. 15, take comments, review legislation

The Tax Working Group has adjourned for today, and set its next meeting for Dec. 15, when it will likely review some conceptual draft legislation and take public comments. “We’ll draw up some legislation,” said Senate Tax Chairman Jeff Siddoway, R-Terreton. Public input, he said, likely will be limited “to a couple of specific areas, maybe income taxes and the personal property tax, and perhaps the grocery tax. And we’ll try to get that figured out.”

House Tax Chairman Gary Collins, R-Nampa, said he’d like conceptual draft legislation on repealing the grocery tax also to be before the committee at that next meeting, along with the other two items. “We’ll talk about it,” he said, as Siddoway smiled. “I’d like to see something. We have the figures on that.”

Asked about online sales taxes, the two chairmen, who co-chair the Tax Working Group, said they think the Idaho Legislature is unlikely to move on that until Congress takes action. Collins said even legislation to join the multistate Streamlined Sales Tax project still likely wouldn’t clear his committee in the House. “It would come out on the Senate side,” Siddoway interjected. He said he’s long supported collecting sales taxes on online sales, which under Idaho law already is due – but few pay it. “I think it’s a fairness deal,” he said.

Both lawmakers said they felt the Tax Working Group had a good and productive meeting today. “We had a very broad presentation of different ideas and different concepts and approaches,” Collins said.