No vote taken to remove grocery tax

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.