Tax fixes: Scout cookies and garage sales

Legislators Tuesday began working on “cleaning up” some of the damage done to the state’s tax code during the first special session. Among those items under reconsideration are Girl Scout cookies and garage sales.
The House Ways and Means Committee, in which tax bills originate, passed two exemption bills Tuesday, including an omnibus measure to restore exemptions to a large swath of items inadvertently taxed when the Legislature rushed raised more than $1 billion in revenue earlier this year. They mainly were swept up in an increase in the sales tax and the removal of exemptions in the current tax.
As for Scout cookies, neighborhood sales and the like, “I doubt we’ve collected much tax on these items,” Legislative economist Greg Albrecht said during testimony of House Bill 51, the special session’s omnibus clean-up bill.
Rep. Jim Morris, R-Oil City, brought the bill to place back exemptions removed to protect items that shouldn’t have been taxed.
Rep. Tanner Magee, a Houma Republican, brought a separate bill to ensure commercial fishermen are not inadvertently taxed.
Gov. John Bel Edwards, during his joint legislative address Tuesday, said a “frantic pace” of the first special session on taxes caused the problems.
Edwards said cleaning up the sales tax is one of his three priorities for this second special session, which run until midnight June 23. The other two priorities are capital outlay funding and “meaningful” tax reform.
“The days of kicking the can down the road are over,” he said.