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Tuesday, June 14, 2016

Let's try this again

Looks like Neil Abramson's House Ways and Means committee will get a second crack at that income tax exemption bill they rejected last week.
A key piece of Gov. John Bel Edwards' tax package will get a second look Wednesday (June 15) after the governor and House leadership talked through a possible compromise.

The House Ways and Means Committee will consider a bill to reduce a state income tax break based on excess itemized deductions used for federal income taxes. The committee killed a similar piece of legislation last week, but amendments are expected to make this proposal more palatable to tax-averse lawmakers.

House Bill 38 would affect about a quarter of Louisiana taxpayers. The governor's staff said most of the people who would see their taxes go up make more than $100,000 per year.
According to a press release put out by Abramson, the bill failed last time because it had been "tied" to the passage of some flat tax legislation proposed by Rep. Julie Stokes which Neil (quite rightly) said he did not care for.  But Stokes's bills passed anyway so that's kind of moot point now.  Anyway something tells me they'll get it passed this time. Why else would they bring it back up if they didn't have a good read on it, right?

Speaking of Abramson, Lamar has really laid into him today in a post questioning Neil's relationships with insurers, oil and gas, chemical companies and other corporate backers. Lamar also hits Neil for his strategic absences including one just yesterday during testimony from parents of children with special needs.  To be fair, though, Neil's committee wasn't taking up any actual business yesterday so he didn't technically have to be there. In today's legislature, you can pretty much follow along from home via the tweets and videos anyway.

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