Tax Expenditure Report hearing set for Friday, forecasting board to meet on Oct. 26

Tax Expenditure Report hearing set for Friday, forecasting board to meet on Oct. 26

The Legislature’s Revenue and Appropriations committees will hold a joint hearing Friday to discuss the Department of Revenue’s Tax Expenditure Report. Requiring such hearings is one of several steps Nebraska lawmakers have taken to bring more transparency to our state’s tax expenditures.

Tax expenditures are like spending in that they represent money the state uses for some purpose. The difference is that instead of tax revenue being collected and then spent, the money is not collected in the first place. But while the Legislature must authorize spending every biennium, tax expenditures are generally only authorized once and then permanently written into the tax code. This allows some tax expenditures to outlive their usefulness and become significant drains on state revenue. The hearing about the Tax Expenditure Report starts at 2 p.m. State Capitol, Room 1524. NET Nebraska will stream the hearing live.

The Nebraska Economic Forecasting Advisory Board will meet Friday, Oct. 26 to forecast state revenue collections. The board will examine measures such as the state’s unemployment rate and economic activity to estimate individual income, corporate income, sales taxes, and other miscellaneous revenues the state can expect.

Forecasting board revenue projections can have significant ramifications for lawmakers as they look to make budget and tax policy decisions in the upcoming Legislative session. The most recent report on Nebraska tax receipts show that net tax receipts for the current fiscal year are ahead of forecasts by about $63 million. The meeting starts at 1 p.m. in the State Capitol, Room 1510. OpenSky will provide updates from the forecasting board meeting on our Twitter page.