More info needed on sales tax centralization plan
Several public bodies I cover are facing pivotal times and topics lately, but today let’s focus on the police jury.
Perhaps the most important thing going on up there is the impending decision on what millage rate to place on the Oct. 9 ballot to try to secure funding for the library, but I’ve hit the library more than enough on this page recently, and we still don’t have any answers on that subject anyway.
Instead, perhaps the most interesting bit from the jury’s last meeting on Tuesday was something on which it didn’t take any action at all.
As has customarily been the case every time the state Legislature brings it up, the jury was poised to formally oppose another attempt to consolidate the collection of local sales taxes into a centralized system like most other states have.
Local bodies always disapprove of these efforts. They see it as another ploy by the state government to seize control and fear it will gum up the works and lead to local tax dollars getting hung up in Baton Rouge for too long or lost altogether.
But one of our area’s state representatives, District 12’s Chris Turner (R-Ruston), did his best Tuesday night to assuage those concerns and get the jury on board with the latest version of the centralization plan coming up in the 2021 legislative session, a plan that’s still in the draft stage and isn’t finalized.
Turner made sure to repeatedly insert the disclaimer that this isn’t his bill, but he claimed the centralization process wouldn’t take any power or responsibility away from the local tax collection offices, wouldn’t change the timeframe within which local bodies get their money and was in no way intended to be a state “takeover.”
Instead, he focused on how the plan would help local governments “capture all these sales taxes we’re missing,” particularly online transactions.
Pressed by jurors to indicate whether the plan would, in fact, involve the state government collecting the sales taxes and then distributing them back to local bodies, Turner insisted that neither the means by which each parish gets paid nor the offices that currently do the collecting would change.
In what sense, then, does this really mean “centralization,” I wonder? Turner’s message basically sounded like “None of your fears are actually in this bill — all we’re doing is ensuring we can collect internet sales taxes.”
But surely if that’s the only goal, that could be accomplished without a constitutional amendment to overhaul the entire collection structure? Something smells a little off. Some of the police jurors seemed to be smelling something too, but they unanimously voted to table their resolution of opposition until more research on the subject could be done.
And that’s pretty much what we’re waiting on. The bill isn’t even a bill yet — there’s no text to analyze to figure out what’s really in there.
One of jurors’ concerns was that, while some other parishes may benefit from the state stepping in, Lincoln Parish’s collection agency only spends about 0.5% of the tax revenue on collection efforts. Can a state government that can’t even figure out its own budget half the time be counted on to be that efficient with local sales tax dollars year in and year out?
Turner said he would be willing to set up a conference call with jurors and House Speaker Clay Schexnayder, one of the spearheads of this legislation, to further explain the intent. Perhaps a clearer picture will emerge after that.
In Turner’s own words, “three years ago I was slicing bologna.” Whether or not their formal opposition will actually make much difference, it was probably prudent for the police jury to hold off and make sure more baloney isn’t on the horizon.
Caleb Daniel is the Ruston Daily Leader’s Digital News Editor. Caleb is a Louisiana Tech University graduate who covers the Lincoln Parish Police Jury and schools for the Ruston Leader.
