House Revenue & Taxation Committee
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- October 5, 2026
Charlie Collins
Unverified
0:00
I'm going to start off by telling everybody how excited I am with the group we have here on this committee and frankly in the whole house. It really is a great group of 100. I'm honored to have at my left my vice chair, Representative Joe Jett. Joe and I have had a chance to sit down and talk a couple times already and I'm really, really excited about getting to work with him. also to my right is our legislative analyst Eden Howard her and I have had a
chance to sit down a couple times and she's absolutely wonderful I'm just getting to know Gina Seaton who is our committee secretary she's wonderful too so I feel like we've we've got some good support and we've got a great team so it's it's looking like we're off to a good start even though we haven't even done anything yet the other thing I'd like to do before we talk a little bit more about us is just introduce some of the other people in the room. We're honored today to have some of the key folks from DF&A sitting over to my right. And if each one of you would
just kind of stand up and introduce yourself, I'd appreciate it. And if you want to write these names down, committee folks, we're going to interact a lot with DF&A over the course of this session. And so the sooner we start putting names and faces together, the better off for all of us. So first, Richard, thank you if you'd go ahead
Representative Charlie Collins
Unverified
1:20
and introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about who you are and what you want to do.
Charlie Collins
Unverified
2:19
Tim, if I could, I'd appreciate if you would use the microphone.
I think it's easier in the beginning, and then it kind of drifts
John Tyson
Unverified
3:02
off a little bit. Thank you. Well, thank you. For those of you that don't know, Richard was born and raised in Africa, so he could have done that by drumbeat and given you the message if you'd known that. That's the honest truth. I'm Tim Leathers, and I'm going to serve as the Deputy Director of the Department, commissioner revenues and I can tell you that we worked with this committee for a
long time and trying to do our best to provide information to you and to give you comments we'll be providing you revenue impact statements as we go along and giving you the best information that we can we consider ourselves technicians and that means we want to make the process work well and we want to make ourselves available to you as technicians so if you need something from us even if
it's not a bill introduced if you need some information if you want us to look at a proposed bill before it comes up to work out any technical issues you get those to us we have the people here to respond to a lot of the questions that you'll have before or after the committee that will be here and I'll let them all just introduce themselves for you and I think you may want us to come back and go over some things in detail about how we do impact statements and those things later but with that and I guess we just go down the line you want
our folks to introduce you and tell you what they do and if you need to contact any of those folks you know they can give you their information but you can call the director's office it's six eight two two two four two and they can get you to any of the other offices to Richard John or me and we'll be able to to try and get you
Speaker 8
4:45
anything you need appreciate it thank you Tim mr.
Speaker 10
4:57
chair committee members my name is John Tyson I'm the
assistant revenue commissioner my responsibilities are primarily related
John Last
Unverified
5:03
to policy issues applying state law specific facts situations as they arise with Tim I will be commenting on bills and providing testimony throughout the session and the probably the best thing I can do for you now is to give you my phone number which is 682-7000 again my name is John last name is spelled T H E I and my email address is john.theis at dfa.arkansas.gov and that's important
for you because as you get back home you're going to have issues arise taxpayers are going to call you our auditors are going to be out auditing them or an issue is going to have arisen with the tax or driver's license or motor vehicle or child support issue and please make me as well as the director's office your first point of contact not that I'll know the answer but I'll know who to call and get you an answer so please keep that information somewhere look forward to working with each of you thanks John
Warren Fagan
Unverified
6:20
good morning my name is Warren Fagan administrator of income tax which includes corporate income tax and individual income tax and my phone number six eight two one three seven eleven thirty sorry first it's my first time in this position so I apologize don't even know my number my email address warren.fagan f-a-g-a-n at dfa.arkansas.gov
Martha Hunt
Unverified
6:55
thanks Warren mr. chair and members of the committee my name is Martha Hunt I'm the chief legal Council of the Revenue Division of DFA. We are an office of 15 attorneys who are responsible for being the primary contact concerning legal issues. We work with you. We work with taxpayers.
We represent the department in court. Anything that concerns a legal issue, my office is responsible for that. We'll be glad to help you in any way. We draft bills. We review bills. we work on the revenue impacts and so forth my office number is 682-7030 thanks Thank You Martha
Tom Actually
Unverified
8:01
mr. chair members of the committee my name is Tom actually I serve the department as administrator of the office of excise tax administration our responsibilities in my group include sales and use tax administration our motor fuel taxes what we refer to generally as miscellaneous taxes those on alcoholic beverages tobacco products and all the other types of taxes administered by our department other than the income tax side so we're
available to assist you at any time and my number direct number is six eight two seven two zero zero and my email address directly is Tom actually it's a t ch ley at dfa arkansas thank you Tom
John Shelnutt
Unverified
9:01
MR. CHAIRMAN, MEMBERS OF THE COMMITTEE, MY NAME IS JOHN SHELNUTT, AND I SERVE AS THE ADMINISTRATOR FOR ECONOMIC ANALYSIS AND TAX RESEARCH, AND WITH ME IS WHITNEY MCLATHLIN, WORKING IN MY SHOP AS WELL. WE PROVIDE ASSISTANCE TO THE DIRECTOR ON THE REVENUE FORECASTING, We also assist with the revenue impact statements that are produced mainly by the Revenue Division.
Charlie Collins
Unverified
9:38
Thank you. Is that everybody, Richard? Okay, great. All right. The next thing I want to do, folks, is just walk through a couple organization-slash-housekeeping things, And then what I want to do at the end is kind of give each one of us a chance to introduce ourselves and maybe 30 seconds to a minute of background. The reason I want to do that at the end is so that anybody that needs to go to something else doesn't miss the information part.
They just would have to, you know, catch up with an individual on his or her own later. So that's why I'm doing that at the end. Okay. The way the committee is structured is the overall tax committee, of course, and then we've got three subcommittees. And the three subcommittees are the sales, use, and miscellaneous taxes, income taxes, and then complaints and remediation. And each one of those subcommittees has a chair and a vice chair.
And what I wanted to do now was introduce to you or share with you who the chairs and vice chairs of those subcommittees are. The sales and use and miscellaneous taxes, the chair of that subcommittee is going to be Representative Copenhaver. The vice chair is going to be Representative Bragg. The income tax subcommittee, the chair of that is going to be Representative Alexander. And the vice chair is Representative House. and the Complaints and Remediation Subcommittee.
The chair is going to be Representative Westerman, and the vice chair is going to be Representative Gossage. So congratulations to those folks. And as you have interest in different things, we'll kind of look to those folks, you know, to be kind of a collection point and a thinking point as we move forward. And then into the interim, there may be some special things that we want to do where they'll have even more impact.
The next thing I want to do is just share with you my belief that, especially for the newest members, the way this session worked in my experience last time was that you got off to, from a bill standpoint, a slow start, and then all of a sudden it started coming like 1,000 fastballs an hour. And it almost feels a little funny that you don't seem to be doing the work,
and then all of a sudden there's too much work to do as well as you'd like to do it. So if I could have had one piece of advice last time, this is it. Use this time to do two things. Get to know the other members and the other people that we're going to be working with and get to know the information that's relevant to our business so that you can be the person with knowledge. A lot of us, you know, have strong ideas and strong beliefs,
but if you start connecting now with the folks at DF&A or the Bureau or other places, you'll be able to really build some knowledge to become an expert that can really influence others. And then as you get to know each other, you'll be able to have the credibility with people. We're on a, you know, quick timing, short notice. You'll be able to influence people to see your way of thinking or whatever it is. So it may feel a little slow from the work standpoint, but the reality is these initial days are really a great opportunity of that. So along those lines, one of the things we're going to do is spend some time, you know, outside of the committee together.
And the first opportunity that we're going to have to do that, and I want to thank Representative Jet for helping me with the organization of this, is a dinner for the entire membership on Monday evening at 6.30. Eden is going to send you more details. I realize that's the holiday, and if you can't make it, that's okay. But if you can, Monday evening at 6.30, we'll have a dinner for us to get to know each other even better.
We're going to send all the details, Denny, to you in an e-mail when this is done, and that way everyone will have it written down and be able to find it and all the rest of it. The next thing I want to do is share with you a little bit of the information that you've got in front of you. Eden was nice enough to actually put pictures on here. That really helps, pictures and names. So you've got who we are, where we're sitting, and then on the second sheet, how to get a hold of each one of us. If that's not the best number for you, then please just let Eden know separately.
And, you know, if we have several changes, we'll get a revision out. I'd like to try and do that like one time, say next Friday. So if you have any revisions, just get them to her. And then for me, and the number is correct, 479-283-9303. If you have any questions or concerns or, you know, you wonder something or you have a problem with something, call me or, you know, stop and see me. There's nothing worse than festering frustration. And
it's, you know, it's easy for that to develop. So, you know, you may not be happy with, you know, how something's going, but at least getting a chance to express your concerns is, you know, something that I would just strongly encourage. And then likewise, I think most of us are
Representative Charlie Collins
Unverified
15:18
that way, so feel free to do that. The next thing I want to say
Charlie Collins
Unverified
15:24
is that our plan will be to have meetings at 10 a.m. in this room, 1.51 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Again, earlier on,
it will be more about information and learning, and then as things unfold, it will be more about, you know, bills and moving forward. So next Tuesday at 10 a.m., we're going to have a wonderful and robust session with our DF&A folks, sharing with us a little bit more detail, you know, some of the roles that they play. Okay, so with that, oh yeah, the next thing I need to talk about here is the technology in front of you. It's going to
be different. It's a wonderful thing. In the last session, we had piles and piles of paper. The good news with that was I knew how to operate paper, but this time we've got these machines, and it looks like they're what we call in the Navy sailor proof, so I'm hoping that will be the case, but things like agendas and bills and the material that we need for the committee will all be done on these tablets, and I think it's a wonderful step forward,
but I'll probably stumble more than most in terms of being able to use that technology. One of the most salient points about that that's different from the past is the amendment process. As most of you know, you have a bill. Sometimes you need to make a change to the bill, since we're talking about laws, the change process is as formal as the actual bill process. And so if you're going to have an amendment in the committee, it's something you're going
to need to do in advance, get a barcode, and if you choose to introduce that change or that amendment during the committee, our staff will simply scan the barcode that they give you to enable that amendment to pop up on everybody's tablet. So even for amendments, we're going to be using the technology. And we'll all just have to hold hands together if it gets a little bumpy. I'm like a walking EMP. And so I guarantee that I'll make it more challenging than it is in other places without
even trying. Yes, Nate. An EMP, electromagnetic pulse, basically is a method for disabling all electronic devices. All right. Okay, so
Representative Charlie Collins
Unverified
18:10
with that, go ahead, Eden. If they lock, if the tablets
Speaker 31
18:18
go to sleep, you can either touch the screen or very quickly touch the button on the top button on the left and flick that one.
If you hold it down too long, it will
Speaker 34
18:34
shut off the tablet. Okay. And you can't actually
Charlie Collins
Unverified
18:40
flick that too quickly. So before we go to introducing ourselves and spending 30 to 60 seconds on that, I'd just like, does anybody else have any comments or questions for the group that we need to cover before we kind of go into introductions and finish? Representative Meeks?
Speaker 31
19:01
Agenda 01. On the side, the very top button. Agenda
Speaker 35
19:19
01. Agenda 01. 01. And that's the same for all committee rooms. All right. That's the same. The agenda 01, if it locks up on you, it's the same for all the committee rooms. Does
Representative Charlie Collins
Unverified
19:31
anybody else have any comments or questions that they'd like to make before we get into introductions?
Charlie Collins
Unverified
19:37
And then I would also just ask the room, is there any comments or questions that anybody has, you know, outside of the committee or things that you want to share with us as we begin to ponder the work ahead? I don't see any hands anywhere, so we're going to roll into introductions. I'll go ahead and go first. My name is Charlie Collins. I live in Fayetteville. I was born in Detroit. I knew I was in Arkansan when my older daughter was working on her history homework,
and she was at the kitchen table, and my wife was at the sink doing the dishes, and my daughter said to my wife, Mom, did we win the Civil War? And my wife said, well, yes, dear, of course we did. And my daughter looked at her book again, and she looked up, and she said, Mom, are you sure we won the Civil War? And my wife said, Yes, I'm sure. And then she said, Well, I thought Arkansas was in the South. And that was many years ago, and we love it here.
I've got triplets that are 18 years old and an older daughter, Jordan, who's 20. She's at the University of Arkansas. And then my younger daughter is at Kings Point, U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in New York. And then my two triplet boys are at Fayetteville High School. And then what I think we can do is just start with Joe to my
Representative Charlie Collins
Unverified
21:00
left and then just go down the table and back up the other edge. Thank you. Good morning, members. My name
Joe Jett
Unverified
21:07
is Joe Jett, and I consider it an honor and privilege to sit here today. And I look forward to working with Representative Charlie Collins up here.
and I'm from District 56 Clay County Randolph County Greene County I farm for a living have a trucking company and a verbal lime right spreading company or a fertilized company and been involved heavily in aviation over the years and I look forward to working each and every one
Representative Duncan Baird
Unverified
21:36
of you guys thank you I'm Duncan Baird I live in Lowell I represent the Rogers Lowell area of of Benton County, graduated from the U of A in Fayetteville with degrees in finance
and accounting, worked for Arvest Asset Management in the investment division before I was elected to the House and got married about a month ago, and that's all I've got. Thanks. Representative
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
22:03
Meeks. That'll change over the years. I'm Representative Stephen Meeks from Greenbrier, and like our chairman, I was born outside of Detroit, so I'm a Yankee transplant. I've been married for seven years, and I have a three-year-old daughter.
This is my second time on the Tax and Revenue Committee, and looking forward to getting some
Representative Tommy Wren
Unverified
22:26
good things done for folks of Arkansas. Thank you. Representative Wren. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm Tommy Wren from District 62. I live in Melbourne. I represent Isard County, Stone County, parts of Independence and Sharp County. I got my start in banking and then went to work for the family, which I do now, and I'm not compensated very well, but I enjoy it. My wife, Ann, and I have three little boys, Trey, Grant, and Mason.
You will hear me talk about Ann and the boys often, and I look forward to working with all
Nate Bell
Unverified
23:01
of you on this committee. Thank you. Representative Bell. thank you thank you mr. chair my name is Nate Bell I live just west of Mena my primary occupation is farmer also do three or four other types of consulting and bail bonds to supplement my politics have it some of you will understand that better than others I have a my wife Phyllis and I have a 20
year old daughter who is a junior at Washington Lee University and our youngest daughter is a senior at Mena High School and this is my second time around here on the revenue and tax committee and looking forward to working with all of you I think we're going to
Randy Alexander
Unverified
23:50
have a good and productive session thank you representative house good morning Doug house my district's 40 which is North Pulaski and southern Faulkner my web
background I retired from the service three years ago I was an army lawyer did a lot of fiscal budgeting contracting law got wife that's retired school teacher she's still a farmer and we've got two grown kids four grand babies thank you thank you
Representative Randy Alexander
Unverified
24:22
representative Alexander good morning my name is Randy Alexander and I represent part of Springdale Johnson and a little bit of Fayetteville I'm a native Texan but in
my career working in campus administration primarily in housing I've lived in several states north of here glad to be back in the south my wife and I Pat has been and I have been married for 40 years I have a son Clint who is married and lives in Rogers Arkansas with the best grandson in the world and a little brother on the way next month have a daughter Lauren who was born with a disability that passed away in 2005 so she lives in heaven disability free my
My expertise in income tax primarily has been paying a lot of it until up to date, so I look forward to learning a lot on this committee. Thank you.
Representative Ken Bragg
Unverified
25:22
Representative Bragg. I'm Ken Bragg. I represent District 15, which covers the western part of Jefferson County, most of Grant County, and the eastern part of Hot Spring County. My background is in forest management. I spent about 30 years with International Paper, and they sold their properties, and I'm now with Resource Management, and we manage about 270,000 acres of timber land.
My wife is a retired teacher, and both of our kids, grown kids, live here in Little Rock, and our daughter just provided us with our first grandbaby about a week before the election, so my status in the family has dropped considerably. My son also lives here in Little Rock, and he's engaged to the young lady that sang our national anthem at the swearing-in. And so we've been very, very blessed with our family and look forward to spending some time here in Little Rock with them.
Representative Bill Gossage
Unverified
26:13
Thank you. Representative Gossage. I'm Bill Gossage. I represent District 82, which is primarily Franklin and Madison County, a little bit of Crawford County. I affectionately call it the Pig Trail District because Highway 23 kind of splits it right in half. It's a great part of Arkansas. My wife, Tanya, has been married 28 years. she works for Bank of the Ozarks has that entire time was over retail banking and training for Bank of the Ozarks and actually she lives in Little Rock during
the week so this is real convenient for me to have gotten elected and be down here with her have one son Johnny works in Arkansas Valley Electric co-op in Ozark have one granddaughter Kenley
John Hutchison
Unverified
27:03
Marie and she's the best thing we got going thank you
Representative John K. Hutchison
Unverified
27:07
representative Hutchinson yes my name is John Hutchison and I represent district 52 which includes points at County Craighead Jackson and Independence I go all the way from 10 miles from interstate 55 to about 10
miles from Cave City Arkansas which is close to Mr. Wren and my wife and I have three children three daughters 29 27 and 20 the oldest two daughters graduated from Arkansas State University along with my wife graduated there she and my wife and my youngest daughter is currently a junior there and I shamefully say that I'm the only one that didn't graduate with a college degree I thought
I had to get into farming a little early you know but anyway I have one granddaughter so we're all girls in my family and two years old my wife works with the lead secretary and with points at County Farm Bureau we my wife and I are members with it with the family farm and we raise rice and soybeans and have
a lot of interest in taxes estate taxes all that kind of stuff and even more but anyway glad to be here and I know I've got a lot to learn here with these fellas here if they'll just bear with me I will ask questions and I guess that's about all I have to say but I do have another grandchild on the way at a very second and I learned over over Christmas that my middle daughter is going to be getting married so been married like 32 years and I'd like to ask
representative Duncan beard in 32 years how his went but anyway thank you Thank you. Representative Thompson. Thank you.
Denny Altus
Unverified
29:07
I'm Tommy Thompson, District 65,
Representative Tommy Thompson
Unverified
29:11
which is all of Conway County, and probably 75% of Perry County. Graduated from the University of Arkansas a couple of times. Worked for the University of Arkansas in the Division of Agriculture for 38 years, and retired back in 2009.
my wife Diane and I have three daughters and nine grandkids this is my second term and I'm looking forward to
Denny Altus
Unverified
29:47
it thank you thank you very
Representative Denny Altes
Unverified
29:53
much representative Altus thank you mr. chair my name is
Denny Altus you probably met my wife Susan works at the front and we've been married 44 years my son runs
the family business and has six kids my daughter is married recently and lives in Baltimore I graduated from Tech with a double major and a double minor economics finance and business sold built and sold several businesses I've served on revenue and tax for eight years in the Senate and would have served on revenue and tax last session but speaker Moore asked me to serve on
transportation so we get the highway tax passed so I'm back so with John Tyson's help carried the Arkansas estate or inheritance tax repeal so enjoy working on revenue and tax we're glad
Representative Charlie Collins
Unverified
31:03
to have you back representative
Speaker 70
31:08
Lee obviously we WE NEEDED DIVERSITY ON THIS COMMITTEE, SO DOUG HOUSE IS HERE.
Andrea Lee
Unverified
31:14
MY NAME IS ANDREA LEE, I REPRESENT RUSSELVILLE, THANK YOU TO ALL THE NORTHWEST ARGANSAS PEOPLE WHO STOP AND GET GAS AND PAY TAXES IN MY DISTRICT ON YOUR WAY TO LITTLE ROCK. THIS IS MY FIRST TIME ON REVENUE AND TAX, IT'S MY THIRD TERM, I SERVED JUDICIARY MY FIRST TERM AND PUBLIC HEALTH MY SECOND, AND COULDN'T WAIT TO GET OFF THERE FAST ENOUGH, SO WHEN I had an opportunity. I chose another committee. Degree from Arkansas Tech as well, emergency administration and management major,
three grown children, three marvelous grandchildren as well. Look forward to serving here. Thank you. All right,
Charlie Collins
Unverified
31:54
everybody. Thank you very much for coming this morning. And if anybody has anything else, any last-minute comments, otherwise if I could have a motion to adjourn. A second? Oh, don't need a second. All right. All in favor, we're done.
Agenda
No agenda available.
Documents
No documents posted.
Speakers
Charlie Collins
Unverified
Representative Charlie Collins
Unverified
John Tyson
Unverified
Speaker 8
Speaker 10
John Last
Unverified
Warren Fagan
Unverified
Martha Hunt
Unverified
Tom Actually
Unverified
John Shelnutt
Unverified
Speaker 31
Speaker 34
Speaker 35
Joe Jett
Unverified
Representative Duncan Baird
Unverified
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
Representative Tommy Wren
Unverified
Nate Bell
Unverified
Randy Alexander
Unverified
Representative Randy Alexander
Unverified
Representative Ken Bragg
Unverified
Representative Bill Gossage
Unverified
John Hutchison
Unverified
Representative John K. Hutchison
Unverified
Denny Altus
Unverified
Representative Tommy Thompson
Unverified
Representative Denny Altes
Unverified
Speaker 70
Andrea Lee
Unverified