Tax commissioner outlines HB1006: IT maintenance, salary equity and property‑tax credits drive budget requests

Tax Commissioner Brian Croches presented the Department of Revenue and Taxation’s budget request (House Bill 1006) to the Senate Appropriations Government Operations Division, emphasizing IT maintenance, staffing and the continuing costs of recently expanded property‑tax relief programs.

“Our mission at the office is to administer the tax laws of North Dakota fairly and efficiently,” Croches told the committee, describing the agency’s move to digital filing and recent program work. The department said about 93–94% of individual income tax returns and nearly all active sales‑tax accounts file electronically; the presentation said roughly 49,000 sales‑tax accounts are in the system with about 1,000 paper filers remaining.

Major requests included maintenance and support for the Gentax taxable‑filing platform, an ask to restore a budget reduction in the executive budget for Gentax maintenance (the department requested an additional $1.2 million for Gentax maintenance and related costs), NDIT fee increases and two additional servers. Croches also asked lawmakers to consider a salary equity package and cost‑to‑continue salary funding to reduce turnover and retain specialized staff needed to administer complex filings and fraud‑prevention work.

Croches highlighted the department’s work on the recent primary residence (homestead) credit rollout: about 138,000 applications were filed under the program and the department ran a multi‑channel outreach and application process that included direct mail, digital advertising and a customer‑service line that processed more than 24,000 calls in the program window. The department reported returning about $6.2 million to taxpayers through a proactive uncashed‑check outreach program.

Budget numbers for property‑tax relief drew detailed committee questions. Croches explained the apparent reduction in the department’s appropriation for the primary residence credit in the House package reflected an accounting change tied to how several property‑tax bills and funding mechanisms interact; he told senators the department expects to need roughly $48 million to $77.5 million to continue the program in the next biennium depending on whether separate property‑tax bills pass and how those measures fund credits.

Croches said the department has requested to maintain its current FTE count after a long period of reductions (the presentation showed staffing fell from about 143 FTEs 20 years ago to 117 today) and asked for continued support to fund IT, salary and operational needs tied to growing filing volumes and new program responsibilities. Committee members asked for clarifications about interactions with third‑party filing vendors and the department agreed to follow up on specific vendor compatibility and rejected returns or schedules.

No formal committee action was taken at the hearing; the presentation and supporting documents were entered into the record for appropriations deliberations.