![\"Sen.](\"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/SenLinehan_inline-200x300.jpg\")
Sen. Sue Crawford of Bellevue introduced an amendment on general file that would decouple Nebraska\u2019s tax code from a provision in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act passed by Congress in March. Because Nebraska conforms to federal tax law on a rolling basis, it automatically incorporates changes made at the federal level. <\/p>\n
The provision in question, which temporarily removes an excess business loss limitation for passthrough entities, would reduce state income tax revenue by approximately $82 million this year, Crawford said.<\/p>\n
She said the proposal is a pared-down version of another amendment introduced by Albion Sen. Tom Briese, which would have decoupled state tax code from several other CARES Act provisions. <\/p>\n
Crawford said that decoupling from the excess business loss provision would preserve state tax revenue at a time when the Legislature is seeking to enact property tax reform.<\/p>\n
Even if the amendment were adopted, she said, Nebraska passthrough businesses still would receive a federal tax cut about four times greater than the one from the state. Crawford said her amendment would not affect a separate CARES Act provision on net operating losses that is intended to provide businesses with the liquidity they need to survive the economic slowdown caused by the pandemic.<\/p>\n
Sen. Mike Groene of North Platte supported the amendment, saying that Nebraska\u2019s tax code already favors the businesses\u2014S corporations and LLCs\u2014that would benefit from the federal change.<\/p>\n
He said the Legislature should decouple from the provision so that it has enough revenue to pay for the business tax incentive and property tax relief measures contained in LB1107, which lawmakers advanced to select file Aug. 5. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not a \u2026 tax increase,\u201d Groene said. \u201cThis is good tax policy to decouple us from this \u2026 giveaway.\u201d<\/p>\n
Briese opposed the amendment. He earlier had withdrawn his own amendment, which he said was introduced to ensure that the state had enough tax revenue to fund a major property tax relief proposal. <\/p>\n
That proposal, now embodied in LB1107, \u201csets out a sustainable path forward for funding property tax reform,\u201d Briese said. <\/p>\n
Linehan also opposed Crawford\u2019s amendment, saying that passthrough businesses would have filed their taxes in July under current law and would have to refile if the change were enacted. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf you send somebody a letter that says \u2018you owe taxes that [you] didn\u2019t owe two months ago,\u2019 that is a tax increase,\u201d she said. \u201cNobody is going to see it any differently.\u201d<\/p>\n
Also in opposition was Sen. Robert Clements of Elmwood. He said the CARES Act tax cuts are meant to give businesses \u201cbreathing room\u201d to help pay operating expenses during the economic crisis and that the act\u2019s effect on state tax revenue had been accounted for in the budget. <\/p>\n
After several hours of general file debate, the Legislature adjourned without voting on Crawford\u2019s amendment or the bill. Per a practice implemented by Speaker Jim Scheer, the sponsor of a bill that is facing a potential filibuster must demonstrate sufficient support for a cloture motion before the measure will be scheduled for additional debate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lawmakers debated a proposal Aug. 6 to decouple Nebraska\u2019s tax code from a federal change made in response to the coronavirus pandemic. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17],"tags":[190],"class_list":["post-28422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-revenue","tag-sen-lou-ann"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28422"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28424,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28422\/revisions\/28424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}