by T. Scott Boatright
BATON ROUGE — House Bill 199, a proposal to centralize state sales tax collection that is opposed by the Lincoln Parish Police Jury in its continued original wording, advanced through a second committee on Tuesday in Baton Rouge.
The House Committee on Civil Law and Procedure unanimously and without making any amendments approved the bill, which will next move on to the full House floor.
House Bill 199 was approved by the Ways and Means committee last week.
In order to pass legislation would require two-thirds support from the House and Senate and backing from voters in a statewide election.
And if the constitutional amendment is approved, lawmakers still also have to work out implementation details before the process could begin.
Louisiana sales taxes are currently collected by school boards of each parish, making Louisiana only one of three states in the country that does not have a centralized sales tax collection system along with Colorado and Hawaii.
One of the primary complaints listed in a LPPJ resolution opposing the bill is the lack of details of the proposal to centralize sales tax collection and deal with the audit process involved in such.
“I am not opposed to central tax collection for those large companies not having an operating presence within the state of Louisiana,” said LLPJ District 8 juror Skip Russell earlier this month. “I simply am opposed to House Bill 199 because it does not make our point clear and we have so many questions I’d like to be clarified before being approved.”