Senate To Vote On $350 Million In Income Tax Cuts, $250 Million More Likely To Pass

“We are bringing 1250 up to the floor for a vote,” a state Senator told me this morning. That’s the income tax cuts introduced by Rep. Craig Headland which, when passed in the House, totaled over $500 million in reductions for individuals, corporations and financial institutions.

When the Senate got a hold of the bill, however, they chopped $375 million out of it leaving just the $125 million in corporate/personal income tax cuts called for in Governor Jack Dalrymple’s executive budget.

There’s been a fight in conference committee to restore at least some of those tax cuts. We won’t get back to $500 million, but it’s a certainty we’ll get more than what the governor wants.

“We amended $350 million in tax cuts in it,” my Senate source told me but he wasn’t positive about the bill’s passage despite support from the bankers (who saw their tax cuts reinstated in this iteration) and the North Dakota Chamber of Commerce. “I expect the Senate to defeat it.”

Headland told me last week that he is fighting to see at least $350 million in income tax cuts, but the consensus among other legislators is that the most we can expect is about $250 million.

That’s a pittance given that, according to the latest revenue numbers just released by the Office of Management and Budget this morning, income tax revenues have increased 41.6% over last biennium for individuals and 66.4% on the corporate side.

Biennium to date, the state has collected $1.7 billion more in total revenues compared to the last biennium. Legislators should be aggressive in cutting taxes right now, not conservative.