WESX AM-1230
Thursday, December 31, 1998
Daily CLT&G Citizens Update

This is Barbara Anderson for CLT&G, with a WESX Citizens Update.

Today is the day we have all been waiting for:

On October 14th, 1997, the Legislature's Joint Taxation Committee held a hearing on Governor Cellucci's bill to roll back the state income tax rate from 5.95 percent to 5 percent. The committee voted to study the issue before acting, and put the tax rollback into a study committee until December 31st, 1998.

Committee member Senator Bruce Tarr objected, pointing out that December 31st, 1998 seemed a tad late for a committee report on a timely tax cut, but he was outvoted.

So the tax rollback went off to be studied, and -- how time flies -- today is the day the report is due! And the state surplus is even bigger than it was then, so the report should be favorable, I would think, to the taxpayers.

One small problem: when I called the Senate Taxation Committee yesterday, I was told everything was being referred to the House side, and when I called the House Taxation Committee, no one answered the phone!

Do you suppose they never got around to studying the tax rate rollback at all, and the vote to study was merely a vote to bury it while pretending to be interested?

We'll look for the report first thing next year, and let you know.

This is Barbara Anderson. Happy New Year.