Last Thursday Gov. Jim Pillen delivered his State of the State address to the Unicameral Legislature. The primary focus of the speech was devoted to tax relief, especially property tax relief. So, I listened closely to hear his plans for tax relief. Although he vows to reduce property taxes by 40 percent, he never offered any kind of substantive plan for doing so. Gov. Pillen’s plan continues several of the same stale practices which have never worked in the past, such as creating more property tax credits for businesses and transferring more revenues into the state’s property tax cash-credit fund. Gov. Pillen is even pinning his hopes for income tax relief on a 3.9 percent income tax rate…coming in the year 2027! The Governor’s tax plan amounts to nothing more than slight of hand tactics to fool the public into believing that meaningful and significant tax relief is on its way.
January 17 was the last day for State Senators to introduce new bills. Sadly, none of the new bills offer meaningful and significant tax relief for Nebraskans.
The best legislative proposal was offered by Sen. Brad von Gillern of Elkhorn. His bill, LB 1241, would require political subdivisions to reduce their property tax levies by the same percentage of increase in property valuations.
