Capitol Review: Modifying Tax Exemption for Clothes, Restoring School Payment

Editor’s Note: Capitol Review is a weekly look at what your state legislators are doing at the Minnesota Capitol—how they’re voting, the bills they’re writing and the issues they’re getting behind. Come back to Minnetonka Patch every Monday for a new Capitol Review.

Senate 

Senators Rest and Eaton introduced--

S.F. No. 9: A bill for an act relating to taxation; sales and use; reducing the sales and use tax rate and modifying the exemption for sales of clothing; amending Minnesota Statutes 2012, sections 297A.62, subdivision 1; 297A.67, subdivision 8.

Referred to the Committee on Taxes.

Under the bill, shoppers would pay sales tax on individual clothing items costing more than $200 dollars. The first $200 would be exempt.

The bill would also lower sales tax by half a percent.

House

Yvonne Selcer; Marquart; Masin; Halverson; Newton; Murphy, M.; Simonson; Ward, J.A.; Savick; Dehn, R.; Yarusso; Sawatzky; Erickson, R.; Fischer; Isaacson; Lien; McNamar; Radinovich; Loeffler; Brynaert; Norton; Laine; Nelson; Metsa; Ward, J.E.; Rosenthal; Freiberg; Dorholt; Hornstein; Sundin; Fritz; Hansen; Anzelc; Faust and Morgan introduced:

H. F. 1, A bill for an act relating to education finance; restoring the school district current year aid payment shift percentage to 90; amending Minnesota Statutes 2012, section 127A.45, subdivision 2.

The bill was read for the first time and referred to the Committee on Education Finance.

The previous legislature borrowed $2.2 billion from Minnesota schools to balance the budget. This bill aims to pay down this debt by making a $550 million down payment, Selcer said.

“Good schools are essential to our state’s future," said Rep. Selcer. "This level of borrowing is totally irresponsible and paying it back is my top priority. This legislation will pay back what was borrowed from our schools so that we can honestly balance the budget and put more dollars in the classroom-not towards paying off interest.”