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No vote taken to remove grocery tax |
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February 8, 2018 |
By Idaho District 1 Representative Sage Dixon
I have received a couple of emails regarding a
vote taken on the floor of the house yesterday.
Because I am aware that not everybody will take
the time to ask for themselves whether something
they read on Facebook is true, I thought it
prudent to explain the vote on House Bill 463.
There was no vote taken to remove the sales tax
from groceries. To present our vote on H463 in
this manner is disingenuous and purely motivated
by politics, not truth.
I am not sure who is distributing the
information on Facebook, but this is the second
time a vote taken on the Floor has been
presented out of context to promote a personal
ideology.
What we did vote on was to send H463 to the
amending order in order to add a repeal of the
grocery tax to the bill. Sending H463 to the
amending order is what the majority voted “no”
on. We did not vote “no” on a bill to repeal the
grocery tax.
The idea of adding the grocery tax repeal to
this tax relief bill was talked about repeatedly
among our caucus. There were many different
opinions as to how it should be handled
legislatively, and whether or not it was a good
idea at all.
The surest course of action to gain tax relief
for Idahoans was to go forward with the bill we
voted on today, no matter how unpalatable its
origin was. To amend H463 jeopardized the goal
of achieving tax relief during another surplus
year.
I support repealing the tax on groceries, as I
have since I have been down here, but did not
agree with the action taken today. We are able
to run another bill seeking to repeal the tax on
groceries at any time, and I hope to see it come
to the floor soon.
It is unfortunate that Facebook is able to
present a jaundiced view of what transpires in
the legislature. |
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