Special session on tax reform looming

Lawmakers could be heading into a special session in November to hash out tax reform.

“We’re really looking at our personal income tax, our sales tax (and) our corporate income and franchise tax. We’re not really touching property tax,” says Richard Nelson, Louisiana secretary of revenue.

Nelson says the goal is to simplify the tax code.

“You’ve got to clip the coupons, you’ve got to get a special credit or exemption, you’ve got to hire a lobbyist to go fight for your specific need instead of just having low rates for everybody like other states have,” says Nelson.

One primary goal, Nelson says, is for Louisianans to keep more of their hard-earned money.

“Louisiana is the only state in the South that’s losing population,” says Nelson, “and the tax code and how complex it is, is one of the main drivers of that.”
Nelson says the complexity of the tax code is preventing the state from attracting companies.

“They just see that we have the highest corporate rate in the South, and they say, ‘We’re going to come here,'” Nelson says. “Or they say we have a higher personal income tax rate than what we need, so they’re not going to come here.”

Nelson said the state would look to update the tax code to capture taxes from online transactions that were previously made in person.

“(For example,) when you used to go to Blockbuster, you would pay tax when you rented a movie. Well now when you download things online, a lot of those transactions don’t end up paying any tax at all.”

Nelson says the current tax code is one of the main drivers behind the fact that Louisiana is the only state in the South that’s losing population.