Republicans at the Arkansas House are offering a large grocery tax cut to Governor Mike Beebe, a larger cut than what he asked for. However, the Governor has questioned the motive behind the offer, if it is a move to slaughter his main legislative concern by sending the proposed higher tax to an unconvinced senate.
The House Revenue and Taxation Committee chairman drafted a proposal which aims to cut grocery sales tax by 0.75 percent, larger that the 0.5 percent that Governor Beebe has proposed. The drafted proposal will be amending Governor Beebe’s Grocery Tax cut which is currently pending in the House Panel.
According to Representative Davy Carter, R-Cabot, the proposed amendment was done to help accelerate the decision regarding the Grocery Tax cut, allowing the house to move on to discussing more extensive tax reforms.
The Senate has already given approval for the half a cent cut on grocery tax, which would mean that the state would lose about $20.8 million on grocery taxes. If the amended figure were to be used, the state would lose around $31.2 million on grocery tax a year.
Governor Beebe has expressed his opinion regarding the amendment in an interview recently. He said he is worried that it might only be a strategy to kill his proposed bill because he knows the Senate will probably not agree to that amount. He said if he thought that the state could afford it, he would have proposed to get rid of the grocery tax altogether. However, since they could not afford it, he settled for a half percent cut on grocery tax instead.
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