Remember that children’s game—Barrel of Monkeys? The House appears to be playing it, as they link tax bills together by amendments, trying to preserve some control over the budget.
It starts with Senator Bob Adley’s SB 93, which cancels the $25 education credit parents can claim on income tax returns, if they also take the income deduction for paying private school tuition.
“All it does is stop a double-dip on the private side,” Adley says.
And it would save the state $2.3 million a year. Simple idea, until House Ways and Means amended SB 93, tying its approval to the passage of two other bills.
One of those linked bills is HB 828, by Rep. Cameron Henry. It would phase out the corporate franchise tax over the next five years. When that bill came up on the House floor, Ways and Means chairman Joel Robideaux amended it, hooking it into yet another bill -- Katrina Jackson’s HB 629.
“When you tie a bill to someone else’s bill, the body assumes that person is supportive of the bill that’s being amended. That is not the case here,” Jackson told Robideaux during floor debate on the bill.
Jackson’s bill increases state revenue by $213-million dollars. Henry’s HB 828, decreases state revenue by $36.5 million.
“I’m trying to figure out why we’re tying revenue to tax decreases when we have a structural deficit?” an outraged Jackson questioned Robideaux.
“I’m trying to protect the budget that we’re currently working on,” Robideaux defended the linkage. “By saying that if your bill does not pass, then this bill does not pass.”
Confused yet? There’s more.
Jackson’s bill is one of the tax bills Donahue’s Senate Finance committee is working on now. Until those bills move, House Ways and Means isn’t going to take up the other bill tied to Adley’s SB 93 – Donahue’s SB 284. It’s known as the SAVE bill, and it is the key link in the whole chain of monkeys.
SB 284 creates a higher education fee for students. It also creates a tax credit to offset that fee. Students won’t have to actually pay the fee, just assign their tax credit for it to their college, which will then get reimbursed for the phantom fee by the state.
SB 284 is also the lock on the budget chain, a major offset linking the shortfall solutions to Governor Jindal’s Americans for Tax Reform pledge of "no net tax increases". Without it, the entire budget faces veto.
And while the House reluctantly reached into the barrel, pulling out some tax hikes in order to avoid crippling budget cuts, it’s clear they’re not comfortable with the way the Senate is monkeying around with phantom fees, offsets, and -- shortly – the full budget bill.