Legislative leaders say Hoosiers shouldn’t expect more big tax cuts or changes in the upcoming session.
In the last 15 years, the General Assembly has enacted major cuts to property taxes, individual and corporate income taxes, financial institutions taxes, business personal property taxes, and eliminated the inheritance tax.
Senate President Pro Tem David Long, echoing the comments of all four legislative caucus leaders, says it’s time to take a breath.
“If for nothing else than to make sure that we’ve got the revenues to be able to provide the services we have to provide,” Long said.
But Long adds the legislature will discuss minor changes to the business personal property tax. That includes potentially exempting small businesses from the levy, which accounts for a small portion of the revenue it generates.
Senate Minority Leader Tim Lanane says what the legislature ought to work on is raising the minimum wage.
“Because the problem isn’t that businesses don’t have a favorable tax climate – expert after expert talks about how favorable the business tax climate is in the state of Indiana,” Lanane said. “It’s that the ordinary person and certainly the poor person, the working poor cannot afford to do anything except pay their bills from paycheck to paycheck…and they can barely do that.”
Lanane admits a minimum wage hike is unlikely to happen.
