A bill that would move billions of dollars and reshape the state’s property tax system by putting a sales tax on every service statewide is now before Nebraska legislators. The bill’s sponsor, Senator Cap Dierks of Ewing, says he knows the measure won’t get far out of committee, if it even passes there.
Dierks says, “I have the honor of having the largest fiscal note ever at the hearing, something like four-billion dollars, so you can get an idea about how far that’s going.” Dierks’ bill would revise the entire Nebraska property tax system by shifting tax burdens.
“This was one that would have put a sales tax on every service in Nebraska, including food, with a tax exemption for the poor and the elderly,” Direks says. “It took away the local option sales tax so the cities would lose that opportunity and we would ask that the schools come to the general fund to get their dollars for running the schools.”
He proposes the greatly-reduced property taxes then be spent on county operations. Dierks says he wants the bill to be the spark of a discussion on Nebraska’s tax structure and acknowledges it won’t have much chance of passing.
“That we know, it’s going no where,” he says. The bill was heard in the Revenue Committee.
Thanks to Jerry Oster, WNAX, Yankton