FAYETTEVILLE — Is any issue worth the extraordinary vote necessary to get it before the Arkansas Legislature in the ongoing fiscal session?
Arguably, yes.
A measure to undo a tax break for truckers is pending.
The tax break ought to be repealed now, not in 2013.
There are reasons for that;
but first, a note about fi scal sessions and the rules that apply:
Arkansas voters created fiscal sessions for the purpose of allowing more timely consideration of budgets than biennial sessions allowed.
Both revenue and planned expenditures are subject to annual review now rather than every other year as they had been.
The fiscal sessions occur in even-numbered years and are supposed to be limited to strictly fi scal matters.
Other issues are supposed to wait for regular legislative sessions, which are held in odd-numbered years.
However, if enough lawmakers agree, theycan vote to take up nonappropriation bills in a fi scal session. “Enough” lawmakers in this instance means twothirds of both houses of the Legislature.
It is a high bar and justifi ably so.
One matter - repeal of that trucker tax break - has gotten that level of support from the House of Representatives.
House members last week voted 81-15 to allow its consideration, well beyond the 67 votes needed to pass House Concurrent Resolution 1009.
The resolution must also be approved by the Senate before either house can consider a bill to repeal the tax break.
Why is this importantenough for action now?
The tax break goes into eff ect July 1.
No one has benefi ted from it yet but will if the issue isn’t addressed until the 2013 regular legislative session.
Then, lawmakers would be raising taxes on truckers who qualify for this particular tax break.
Now, they’d be undoing a deal gone bad.
Plus, there will be diff erent legislators in the mix next year, people who weren’t involved in the deal struck last year between lawmakers and truckers.
They might be less inclined to take away the sales tax exemption for big trucks and trailers.
Here’s what happened last year: The trucking industry, represented by the Arkansas Trucking Association, promised to endorse and help campaign for a proposed 5-cent-per-gallon increase in the state diesel tax. In exchange, lawmakers gave them a tax break worth about $4 million. The measure exempted certain trucks and trailers from thestate sales tax.
The lost sales taxes were to have been replaced with the new diesel tax revenue.
The deal assumed the public would pass that additional tax on diesel fuel.
The trucking association later discovered that was a mistaken assumption.
A poll commissioned by the truckers essentially said the proposed diesel tax could not pass.
So the truckers pulled their support and saved the money they would have spent to campaign for the proposal, which never made it to the ballot. Obviously, there won’t be any replacement revenue for sales taxes on truck and trailer sales, but barring repeal of the tax break, there will be an exemption on big truck and trailer sales.
The trucking association isn’t fighting repeal of the tax break, at least not now, which is yet another reason why lawmakers ought to get this business done during the fi scal session.
BRENDA BLAGG IS A COLUMNIST FOR NWA MEDIA.
Opinion, Pages 5 on 02/21/2012