Taxation Committee approves multiple bill requests, including county sales-tax ballot authority

The House Committee on Taxation approved a slate of bill requests and procedural items by voice vote or without objection during its business session.

Representative Doug Blex introduced RS 263161 on behalf of the Butler County commission, a request to allow a countywide sales tax to be placed before voters; Blex described a sliding scale the county would use, between 0.25% and 0.3%.

Heather Morgan appeared for community colleges and introduced RS 3203 to extend an income-tax credit for community and technical colleges for five years.

The chair introduced RS 3006 to update statutory references that named the federal GILTI program, replacing a program name with a reference to the Internal Revenue Code to reflect federal changes. The committee also approved RS 3002, a rewrite of earlier law on property-tax appeals that would establish a new base year for up to five years after a successful Board of Tax Appeals decision (the earlier 2014 approach that froze values had been ruled unconstitutional). The chair introduced RS 2487 to give counties authority to adopt a resolution and put sales-tax questions on the ballot, similar to city authority.

A motion to approve committee minutes from January was moved and seconded; the motion carried on voice vote. Committee members registered thanks and brief remarks but raised no sustained opposition to the requests; the chair approved each request without objection.

These requests were approved for further processing; no final legislative action or roll-call votes took place on the measures during the meeting.