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Committee approves amended farmer sales-tax exemption card bill
Summary
The House Revenue & Taxation Committee approved an amendment and voted to give House Bill 1594 a do-pass recommendation after DFA and the bill sponsor clarified eligibility rules and administrative provisions for a farmer sales-tax exemption card.
The House Revenue & Taxation Committee voted to pass House Bill 1594 as amended, a measure to authorize the Department of Finance and Administration to issue a farmer sales-tax exemption card and to set eligibility and administrative rules for that card. Representative Diane Vaught and DFA staff described the amendment as a replacement text that defines who qualifies and how the program will be administered.
The amendment, explained to the committee by Paul Gehring of the Department of Finance and Administration, sets out qualifications for an eligible farmer, including generally filing a Schedule F or filing a business plan demonstrating active commercial farming if the filer does not use Schedule F. The amendment also allows DFA to assess sales tax on purchases made with the card that later are determined not to qualify and establishes an eight-year validity period for the card with a renewal process.
The change was presented as an effort to address a gap in the original bill, which did not define “eligible farmer.” Gehring told the committee DFA worked with the sponsor to mirror approaches used by other states and to include provisions to recover administrative costs. He said DFA would be authorized to bill purchasers where a vendor and purchaser mistakenly accepted the exemption for a nonqualifying item.
Representative Vaught moved the amendment; the committee adopted it and then voted to give the bill a do-pass recommendation. There were no registered proponents or opponents who spoke during the hearing. The chair called the voice votes and recorded the outcome as passed.
Committee members asked no follow-up questions during the final presentation. The bill now advances out of committee as amended for further consideration.
The text of the amendment and administrative rules to implement the card—such as the documentation DFA will require from applicants and the precise renewal process—were discussed as part of the amendment but specific application forms or fee language were not included in the committee presentation.
