Dear Neighbor,
The Minnesota House on Monday passed a bipartisan tax bill which simplifies Minnesota’s tax code and provide additional tax relief to middle-class Minnesotans. The legislation also delivers the first income tax rate cut for Minnesotans in nearly two decades by reducing the second tier income tax rate.
The federal government’s tax overhaul really presented a challenge for us at the state level in terms of achieving our goals of simplifying our state code while also providing tax relief for middle-class Minnesotans. The good news is this bill holds harmless as many taxpayers as possible as we also look to make tax reductions. Especially important are measures we included to help farmers with provisions related to homestead taxes and Section 179 conformity for equipment purchases.
Without House reforms, conforming to the federal tax code would cause nearly 970,000 filers to pay more. Instead, the House bill delivers the first income tax cut in nearly 20 years and more than 2.1 million Minnesota filers would benefit from a tax cut in tax year 2018.
On Thursday, the House approved a supplemental budget bill related to agriculture. It allocates roughly $35.25 million to a number of programs that will assist Minnesota’s farmers. It was good to see the bill receive strong bipartisan support in earning approval from the full House.
Highlights include:
- $35 million in bonding revenue for farmer loans through Rural Finance Authority
- $217,000 for additional mental health counseling specifically tailored to farm families and other rural professionals
- $30,000 for farm advocate services
- Requires nitrogen fertilizer rules proposed by MDA to have legislative approval
- Extends the Agriculture Fertilizer Research and Education Council (AFREC) by 10 years in order to fund long-term research aimed to reduce inputs, improve soil health and preserve water quality
This week MnDOT came out with its list of Corridors of Commerce projects for the year and I must say I was very disappointed with their selections. This is supposed to be a statewide program helping to link regional centers, but all four of the projects MnDOT chose (at a cost of $469 million) are located within 50 miles of the Metro area. Agency officials tried to rationalize what they have done, but it’s still a bad deal for Greater Minnesota and does not fit the spirit of Corridors of Commerce.
On a final note, as I mentioned last week, the Dept. of Agriculture released the second draft of its controversial Nitrogen Management Plan earlier than had been scheduled. Originally, they had planned to make it public in mid to late May, but pushed up the release date due, at least in part, to strong pressure from legislators and farm groups.
An 80-day comment period starts this week, followed by a series of informational meetings around the state. After that, an administrative law judge will either accept or reject the rule or suggest changes. When all these steps have been completed, Gov. Mark Dayton could be signing the rule by December.
Click here for more information regarding the public comment period and click here for a column I submitted to area newspapers this week with more on this subject.
Until next time, your input is welcome as we prepare to enter the final two full weeks of the legislative session.
Sincerely,
Paul