Birmingham official warns pulled municipal tax bills would cut city revenue
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Summary
Yolanda Lawson, speaking for the city of Birmingham, told the Senate committee that two pulled municipal tax bills (SB 36 and SB 37) would reduce operating revenue, shift costs to Birmingham residents and create enforcement problems at retail checkouts.
Yolanda Lawson, identifying herself as representing the city of Birmingham and as mayor of Pleasant Grove, addressed the Senate committee to describe how two recently pulled bills—SB 36 and SB 37—would affect municipal finance.
Lawson told the committee the bills would permit exemptions from local sales taxes for nonresidents, which she said would ‘‘directly hit our operating revenue’’ and force the city to shift costs to Birmingham residents. She warned that leaving collection decisions to retail staff or merchants would ‘‘create chaos at the cash register’’ and invite people to ‘‘game the system’’ by exploiting address-change rules and other gaps in verification.
The city official said sales-tax revenue funds police, fire, streets, infrastructure and maintenance, and that restricting collections from nonresidents would necessitate finding alternate revenue sources or raising costs for residents to maintain service levels.
The chair had already pulled the two bills from the committee agenda; Lawson asked that, given constituents had traveled to testify, the body allow public comment before leaving the topic. Committee members thanked Lawson for appearing and indicated the bills remained withdrawn from the agenda. The committee took no further action on SB 36 or SB 37 during the session.