Youth council proposes inheritance tax, affordable housing fund and protections to keep young Vermonters in state

Presenting on youth and Vermont’s economy, a member of the Vermont State Youth Council told the Senate Government Operations Committee that the legislature should create a state affordable housing fund and consider an inheritance tax to support it.

The council proposed applying a 5% tax to inheritances of $250,000 or more or, alternatively, using revenue from the existing estate tax to fund the affordable-housing program. The fund would be used on strategies such as converting abandoned buildings, using empty dorms, or building up rather than out, the council said.

The presenters described the severity of homelessness in Vermont during the testimony: “We cannot virtuously work toward achieving any other political agendas until at least 2,000 out of the 3,500 currently homeless people in Vermont are given their human right of housing,” the presentation said, and cited a statistic that Vermont had the fourth-highest homelessness rate with “51 out of 10,000 people experiencing homelessness last winter.”

To keep young people in the state, the council recommended that personal income tax, not property-location-based assessments, be used to avoid higher tax burdens in tourist towns where many properties are owned by out-of-state residents. The council also recommended that the Vermont Chamber of Commerce actively promote local businesses, that public schools provide free K–12 meals with a portion of food sourced from local farms, and that students be educated about town meeting day to preserve civic traditions.

The committee thanked the presenters and requested the council’s slide deck; there were no committee votes on these ideas during the hearing.