Bills clear committee

INDIANAPOLIS — Three bills authored by a local legislator cleared Indiana Senate Tax and Fiscal Policy Committee.

Sen. Travis Holdman’s Senate Bills 61, 147 and 228 — they address tourism improvement districts, child care property tax exemption and department of revenue issues, respectively — were all approved Tuesday during the committee’s final hearing of the 2024 session.

Senate Bills 61 and 228 passed the committee unanimously, 14-0. Senate Bill 147 passed 9-4 on a party-line vote. All three now move to the full Senate for second and third readings.

Senate Bill 147, which Holdman authored along with Sen. Linda Rogers (R-Granger) and Sen. Ed Charbonneau (R-Valparaiso), would make changes regarding property tax exemptions to for-profit early childhood education providers. It would add a curriculum requirement for all children and provide a partial property tax exemption for employers that provide child care.

Concern about the bill during the committee hearing was regarding the tax exemption, with Sen. Fady Qaddoura (D-Indianapolis) saying the bill subsidizes for-profit entities without requirements that the recouped tax dollars go toward solving childcare challenges. He also said he believes it’s bad public policy to fund education via property taxes.

“I sincerely appreciate Sen. Rogers,” said Qaddoura. “I agree with her on the intent. It’s a big problem in the state of Indiana. We need to fix it, but this bill is truly a subsidy for for-profit entities without any guardrail to truly direct it at childcare deserts or the kids that need to benefit from this program.”

Sen. Andrea Hunley (D-Indianapolis) expressed similar concerns and said she’d like the property tax exemption to be an “opt-in” for local governing bodies rather than a requirement.

Senate Bill 228 from Holdman, who represents all of Jay, Blackford, Adams and Wells counties as well as part of Allen County, covers various issues involving Indiana Department of Revenue. Its five major provisions as described by department of revenue director of tax policy Colin Davis during Tuesday’s hearing are:

•Removing a transaction threshold for out-of-state retail merchants as a requirement for registering with the state department of revenue. (He noted that other states are planning to reciprocate, thus removing a burden from small businesses.)

•Eliminating the requirement for a utility study as part of the requirement to apply for a utility sales tax exemption. (The provision mostly impacts restaurants and is designed to simplify the process of seeking the exemption.)

•Clarifying the statute of limitations of periodic taxes. It would set the return due date at Jan. 31 for all taxes from the previous calendar year.

•Requiring that taxes collected by sheriffs be distributed by electronic transfer.

•Allowing the department to share certain private information with tax preparers and software companies in cases in which the department believes fraudulent returns have been filed. (Davis said such returns generally involve a tax preparer having had a security breach. This provision is intended to allow the preparer to investigate such issues.

Holdman’s Senate Bill 61 would allow for petitions to create tourism improvement districts. Such districts would utilize a tax rate to generate funds for marketing and/or development.