The House Ways & Means Committee met Jan. 15 to walk through a miscellaneous tax bill that packages a range of technical and administrative changes to Vermont tax law. Kirby Keating, legislative counsel, guided members through the draft and flagged items that originated with the Department of Taxes; the department’s deputy commissioner, Rebecca Samaroff, was listed on the agenda but was not present and was expected to return for detailed testimony.

The bill is a catchall for mostly revenue‑neutral or low‑impact changes and, according to Keating, will likely sit in committee until the week of crossover. The committee plans to conduct a straw poll on individual sections roughly two weeks before crossover and to solicit additional testimony in the interim. Keating said staff will add and refine language over the next month.

Substantive provisions reviewed included a repeal of a rule preventing S corporations from taking credits for taxes paid to other states (a disparity that currently benefits LLCs and partnerships), transfer‑tax anti‑avoidance language aimed at sham landlord certificates and LLC arrangements, several changes to current‑use and land‑use change tax administration, valuation and appeal timing adjustments, a communications‑property inventory penalty and valuation authority, an adjustment to how the Common Level of Appraisal (CLA) is set after a mass appraisal, an extension of the health‑care IT fund sunset, and technical education‑finance indexing fixes that replace NEAP with NIPA.

On process, the presiding member said most sections will take effect on passage; two items have distinct effective dates: the corporate income tax change would apply retroactively to tax year 2025, and certain current‑use changes would take effect in fall 2026 to align with enrollment and grand‑list timing. Keating asked members to flag any provisions they want to revisit; committee members requested further testimony from the Department of Taxes (Rebecca Samaroff), from PVR/PBR staff on valuation procedures, from municipal representatives about the administrative burden of appeals, and from Nolan on the health‑IT sunset.

No formal motions or votes occurred during the Jan. 15 session. The committee recessed to hear the next scheduled witness at 10 a.m., and will return to this bill after the requested testimony.