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Nebraska ag leaders say tax bills are unacceptable as proposed

Two high profile tax bills are being debated by Nebraska lawmakers this week. But leaders of several Nebraska ag organizations say they don’t do enough to provide meaningful property tax reform.

Nebraska Soybean Association president Dennis Fujan of Prague tells Brownfield LB 640, which was debated on Tuesday, is little more than status quo for property taxpayers.

“LB 640 caps the amount of funding coming from property taxes for schools, which is good,” Fujan says. “But the problem is funding for LB 640 comes from the property tax credit fund, which is the only relief property taxpayers are getting at this time. It’s pulling money from one source of relief and putting it into another source. So it’s basically not changing anything.”

The other bill, LB 461, is slated for debate this Friday. The bill has been promoted as providing tax savings for both income and property taxpayers in the state.  But Nebraska Farm Bureau president Steve Nelson says the tax savings are far out of balance when it to comes to addressing property taxes.

“Right now, the way the bill is laid out, about three-quarters of the bill would go to fund income tax relief and about one-quarter would go towards property tax relief,” Nelson says. “We believe that those numbers actually need to be flipped, as a starting point for the discussion.”

Nelson says they will continue to work with legislators to try and improve the bills so they deliver for property taxpayers.

AUDIO: Dennis Fujan

 

AUDIO: Steve Nelson

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