{"id":29410,"date":"2021-02-24T16:33:19","date_gmt":"2021-02-24T22:33:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=29410"},"modified":"2021-02-24T16:33:19","modified_gmt":"2021-02-24T22:33:19","slug":"tax-exemption-for-residential-water-service-considered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=29410","title":{"rendered":"Tax exemption for residential water service considered"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Revenue Committee heard testimony Feb. 24 a proposal that would exempt residential water service from state sales and use tax.

\"Sen.
Sen. Justin Wayne<\/figcaption><\/figure> <\/p>\n

Omaha Sen. Justin Wayne, sponsor of LB26, said Nebraska does not impose sales tax on bottled water but does tax residential water service, unlike many states. He said a substance that is essential to life should not be subject to tax.<\/p>\n

The state Department of Revenue estimates that LB26 would reduce state general fund revenue by $4.6 million in fiscal year 2021-22, $7.8 million in FY2022-23 and $8.6 million in FY2023-24.<\/p>\n

Doug Kagan of Nebraska Taxpayers for Freedom testified in support of the bill. He said Nebraskans pay the tax in question on a government service, not on their consumer purchases or private services.<\/p>\n

Kagan said businesses can claim a tax exemption if more than 50 percent of the water they use is consumed in manufacturing, processing, refining or the irrigation of farmland. <\/p>\n

\u201cAdding this exemption to residential property seems only fair,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Jack Cheloha testified in opposition to the bill on behalf of the city of Omaha. If LB26 passes, he said, the city would lose between $1.6 million and $2 million per year in sales tax revenue that it uses to balance its budget. <\/p>\n

Also in opposition was Lash Chaffin of the League of Nebraska Municipalities. He said LB26 would cut revenue to the more than 200 Nebraska cities that impose a local option sales tax.<\/p>\n

Cities would have to increase water rates or their property tax levies to offset that loss, Chaffin said.<\/p>\n

The committee took no immediate action on the proposal. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Revenue Committee heard testimony Feb. 24 a proposal that would exempt residential water service from state sales and use tax. <\/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":[191],"class_list":["post-29410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-revenue","tag-sen-justin-wayne"],"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\/29410","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=29410"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29412,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29410\/revisions\/29412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}