Revenue & Tax - Senate

It's 2 on the bottom of it. Those have actually been added. So whenever we get there, so it doesn't matter which sheet you're you're working off of right now. It's just. At the end we will have an additional 2. All right, Mr. Geering, you just, whenever you're ready, if you'll just recognize yourself and, uh, we will start with the property tax relief Trust Fund report. Thank you, Mr. Chair Paul Gehring, DFA. Thank you very much. So the our next report is the property tax relief Trust Fund report required by statute and we at DFA would make a recommendation that we continue to provide that report as required by statute. OK. Any members have any questions in regards to this, I think. This would definitely be a report that we want to keep. Again, we were just trying to be all inclusive whenever we put this on there, so, uh, some are gonna be self-explanatory. Anybody from the audience have any different opinion on that? They'd like to say, OK. So we'll just say we're gonna keep that one, Mr. Smith, you're keeping up with all this, right? Thank you. All right, the next one is gonna be the, uh, Office of Arkansas Lottery, that report, is that correct? That's correct, Mr. Chair. That is the monthly director's report of the Office of Arkansas Lottery. It's a monthly report required by statute, and DFA would respectfully request that that report continue as required in the law. That's also presented in the lottery oversight committee. They do, they, I think we see that within that committee also, yeah, so again, much like the last one. Uh, probably an important report that we keep. Any member have any questions on it. Anybody from the audience? OK, we'll go to the next one. We'll keep that one, Mr. Smith. OK, the next report is the biennial report of boards and commission attendance. It is a biannual report that indicates each state board and commission of the meeting dates for the previous two fiscal years, attendance record of each member and number of meetings. It is required by statute and DFA respectful respectfully recommends that we continue that report. OK. So there's the and the reason that you all want to do that is there's something where those members have to attend those meetings also or so there is an actual, uh, The reason they're doing that is because maybe they can't serve if they don't do it or something of that nature, or do you remember Mr. Gering looking through the legislative history of that report, it is rather recent. It's reporting requirement was, I think, the General Assembly, one of the considerations in the statute was that the general assembly needed to know if there, if these boards are commissions we're not holding meetings to make sure well, do we need this general saying we need to revisit and see if this border commission, if they're not. Keep attending meetings if they're not. Does it need to be continuing in existence. OK, any members, uh, Senator Petty. Recognize, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Does this report also uh monitor or or track the term and the vacancy in a position or anything like that, or is it strictly just the attendance of the board and the commission, uh. itself. Senator Petty, I'd have to go back and see, but certainly the dates of attendance and the members present are a component of the report, but I'm not sure if there's a requirement of report of any vacancies that are unfilled, but I'll be happy to follow up with you, sir. If you don't mind because I've, I've been hearing of, of just various boards and commissions that uh that have had. Extended vacancies that they can't feel for various reasons and so I just think that if that report is going to continue, that might be good information to have. And also to that that is a report that's not just a DFA report, it's, it's all state. We do have some bodies that are that are considered in that report, such as the we have a Tax group that gets together once or twice a year to discuss changes in Arkansas law. That's even though it's not a A board. It's called a tax advisory council about it's considered within the scope of the reporting requirement. All members In an agreement that's a report we keep. Senator Hester, we're on I know you had another commitment you were able to come, so we're on the, there's a report that on the boards and commissions, so by biennial report and what it does is just show the attendance of those members. I think we dealt with this a few years ago, so. Yep. OK. All right, so anybody from the audience have any? Anything additional on it, OK. Uh, Mr. Geering, you can go to the next one. Thank you, Mr. Chair. The next report is the annual report of the Arkansas involvement with the multi-state tax commission. It's an annual report due by September 30th. It is required by statute. Arkansas is a member of the multi-state tax commission, or one of the compact states as a part of our involvement with the commission primarily the multi-state tax commission performs multi-state audits of taxpayers. That, um, and then that information is shared with the member states for the states that are affected for many taxpayers they would prefer to go through one audit through the multi-state tax commission as opposed to one multiple audits within multiple states. This report is required by statute, but certainly if the General Assembly needed any information about the multi-state tax commission, they could reach out to the department, so we would respectfully request that, you know, either the report eliminated or considered for elimination or maybe be Less regular than annual. OK. Members What's your flavor on eliminating this report or as you say, either eliminating or making it. You know, Wes, I think we need to start with eliminating it first because if, you know, if, if everybody's OK with eliminating this and we don't have anything, I think that's uh. Probably what we're trying to get done in this. Anyone have any issues with that? OK. He went from the audience have any additional thing to say on that. OK, Mr. Smith, and we'll get, so that is in that is in statute also. It is, sir. OK. Any, any. Recall just 11 further thing, any recall of whenever that was put in statue, was there something what what required that to be go to the, go to the point that we did put that in statute. Maybe that's the question we need to ask. Thank you, Mr. Chair in my recollection from looking at the legislative history, that report was required through 2015 legislation, and I believe prior to that the Arkansas statutes at the time required presentation coming to the General Assembly and making a presentation to the legislative body about our involvement, so at that time we didn't want to hear the presentation anymore. Let's just get a report and um and since that time they're really there's been minimal interest, of course, from time to time if there's a question that the members of the General Assembly have about our involvement. We provide that, but this particular report we could we could save work time by eliminating it, OK. Right. Anything else? All right, all right, I, on that one, Mr. Smith, uh, we, we actually need to do, we need to do the legislation to eliminate it. So we'll just need to prepare a statute to to repeal that that part of it. All right. OK, next report, Mr. Chair, is the report of that's The tax law changes compliance problems, methods to expedite claims or refunds and administrative matters and other related issues related to tax. It's a statutory report. We estimate that's 5 hours annually, possibly this this report could be eliminated I think that as time to time we receive issues in real time where we have these discussions as when as they come up with taxpayers and members of the General Assembly. possibly the need for this report, we could save time by eliminating it. Members, any questions on this? OK, so Tax law changes. There. Where, where is this report actually getting sent now whenever. It's prepared, do you even know? I mean, is that even, is that going through ALC or anything of that nature, or Mr. Chair, I believe it is ALC that received that report, but I'll be happy to go back and verify that. I I guess that's kind of the issue. I've been down here. Wow Since January of 2013 and Try to try to stay up on some of this and myself, I don't even know where that report is, so I guess that's uh maybe we don't need it if as long as you all, you, you all are keeping this in the event that we start to, we start getting questions or something, you all can get the information for the members or committee of the legislature. That's right. And also Mr. Chair, I believe that report also goes to the chairs of the tax committees as well. Um, so that would be me and again I'm a It's not just, it's not something that I'm going to pore over and look at, so, right. Right. Yes, sir, Senator Hammer. Thank you. I'm trying to refresh my memory on some of these reports. You get, are they summaries or are there summary sheets that come with them, or are they the full fledged reports there are summaries of the typically the issues that are discussed at the tax advisory council, which is a body that members of DFA we attend usually it's a Once a year or twice a year, maybe more often if there are issues that are presented, and there's also members of the taxpayer public that that attend the meeting, they occur over on one of our DFA buildings and the agenda is formulated prior to the meeting of anything that's important to discuss typically we'll have a meeting after the legislative session concludes just to go over things that are important as well as to provide Statistical information about how processes are going with income tax refunds, but also it's an opportunity for the taxpayer public to give us information and feedback from any challenges that are in their area. And then once the meeting is concluded, we prepare minutes of that meeting and then with this report is a kind of a consolidation of summary that the meetings were held and who was in attendance. OK, all right, let me think a little bit. OK, so Anybody public have any? Anything additional on this, OK, so why don't, why don't we just go ahead and uh prepare the statute to repeal that. One thing that's coming to my mind right here also and I know we're, we're leaning on you all. You're probably going to have to provide Senator Crow if he's going to be running both of these like talking points because whenever we get on the Senate floor and then also in the House committee and House floors, you know, we may have members that have multiple questions about why we would eliminate this. I think Some of the testimony that you're giving here, I think we, we probably need that so that we'll be able to explain that on the floor because we, there is some of these, some of these we could possibly get some pretty heavy duty questions on so so, but let's go ahead and prepare that one and uh we'll, we'll proceed that way. OK? We certainly did. We skipped that one. My apologies. So Mr. Chair, we could go back to the update on requiredr promulgation. That is a statutory requirement within our rulemaking that any rules that are required to be promulgated from the um previous legislative session, the agency is required to provide a monthly report by the first of the month, and then that assists the bureau when they're formulating the agenda to have the status of any ongoing rule promulgation. Um, that where, where it's at, have we been approved by the governor's office? Have we held our public comment hearing? Where are we at in the process? So we, we, we understand this doesn't affect only DFA. It's also helpful to the legislature to know I've passed this law. I wanted to know. I don't want to have to call the agency to find out where their rulemaking is. Not only can that member that passed that piece of legislation, know where it's at by looking at that report, but also the members of the rules committee. will know what's what is on uh in their pipeline for review. This is definitely a definitely a report that This legislature is, is going to want to keep it and we, we listen to that on a regular basis. I want to know where we're at in that process. I'd actually even go one step further in history. I know that we were trying to The all inclusive with these, so the some of the, whether be it public health or, you know, DHS. I know that they probably have this on there too. We might want to be proactive to make sure that none of those other uh uh committees actually try to take that off or have that discussion, you know, probably on a more macro type level, I would think, because again, You know, I think we understand the importance of it with the tax thing, but That, that will be something that needs to probably stay. You know, in my opinion, you know, uh, inclusive across the whole all the agencies on the rules. Thank you for that. I apologize for skipping over, I just knew the importance to keep the thing and just just went on, went on over it, so. So now we're going to be on which one we're going to be on, everybody see that report on pending litigation claims and assessments, let's go, let's look at it. Yes sir, Mr. Chair, that's the report on pending litigation claims and assessments, semiannual report required by statute, that is a report that applies to not just DFA but to other state agencies. That report provides the information to the General Assembly about litigation matters that have been filed against the state and what that litigation pertains to. It's also valuable for purposes of evaluating any risk to the state for any any potential tax refunds or damages that the Parties are claiming against the state or any matters where the state is actually the plaintiff and is seeking damages, so we, we believe that report is helpful and should be kept. Any members have any Any questions on in regards to that one? And again, Senator Hester, just like the last one, this one's uh It's, it's not, it doesn't just pertain to DFNA. It's, it's all these other agencies. It's all of them and, you know, you say on here, let me see 31. 0, yeah, people ask questions about it. It's something that's used. Yes, yes, it is, and also from time to time there are going to be Matters that we are going to seek legislative approval to enter into a negotiated settlement, so it gives an opportunity for the General Assembly to have some background information while the case is progressing through the litigation process and then ultimately it might have come before claims for a possible Negotiated settlement for approval by the committee, an ALC. Right So again, that's uh along with the other one that we just just went back and discussed, I guess that would be one that we probably need to make sure our other chairs of the other committees. And Understand the importance of keeping to make sure we're staying consistent across everyone. OK, next one's going to be report of tax litigation. Resolved in the previous calendar year. Chair, that report is a new report that's required by statute. It was enacted in the past legislative session. Representative Kavanaugh was the primary sponsor of that bill. The The purpose of that was to give the general assembly prior to the session beginning the tax matters that have been resolved that were over $25,000 or more in controversy just to let the members know what is being actually litigated with regards to tax in the state of Arkansas. It also provides them not just the matters that are brought to final resolution by either a trial or an appeal, but matters that we have resolved so we certainly can continue providing that report. It is very similar to the report that we're already providing in the report that I just mentioned before this one, so In terms of overlap of duties we're already providing this in that previous report. So just, just a question for me. So you're you're doing two reports basically, but so the other one says annual or this one says annually by January 10th. That's right. Is there any help to you all at the one that's right above it if, if If we change that one to, it's, it's currently se semiannually. Is it any help to you all, or I wonder if there'd be any controversy if we said annually by January 10th, so you could just be all inclusive in that report. What's, what's actually ongoing and what's been settled at the same time, yeah, you know, I think it's usually the helpfulness of that report is for purposes of the General Assembly. If there are areas of the law that are gray or ambiguous that are resulting in litigation that they can start thinking about those during the session. That's why the deadline was January 10th, so it's possible that it could be Um, issued every 2 years prior to the beginning of the session, then we would only have to provide it every other year as an option. OK. I Yes, Senator Hester. I mean this is a report from the Tax Appeals Commission that I got like yesterday, different reports are. This is a tax appeals commission report, those are going to be matters that were resolved within the Tax Appeals commission. Those are Going to be confidential, so that's going to be statistically driven report from the Tax Appeals Commission that shows the amount of matters that were decided and the amount of that were settled, whereas this report is actually going to have the controversy, the parties and the controversy because it's litigation and so essentially the Taxpayer's name, where the lawsuit was filed, the resolution through the circuit court as well as the Supreme Court if they went through that process or if it got resolved by agreement of the parties and then the ALC approved the settlement. OK. And so since, since you said Representative Kavanaugh, it's, you know, it actually sponsored this. You know, in the last session on this particular one, you know, again, since she's House chair of revenue tax, you know, You might just if you wanted to, why don't you just ask her if there would be an appetite for her to do it every, every 2 years. So I mean, that's gonna save y'all. 16 hours I guess so and if she doesn't want to do that, then you know I'd say we wouldn't go forward, you know, if she wants to keep doing it annually for a little while, so why don't we, if, if it's OK with you, why don't we just uh uh Have you all to contact her, ask her if if it would be OK. Tell her we'll start the legislation down here since we're doing all these other ones. If, uh, she would, if she would mind doing it. Yes sir, I'd be happy to do that. Anybody in the in the public have any comments on that one? Right, you got that marked what we're gonna do. OK, thank you. All right, Mr. Geering, you go to the next one. Thank you, sir. Next report is the report of the number of individuals granted an automatic occupational licensure and expedited occupational licensure. It's annual report. That report comes from the Office of Motor Vehicle. It is statutory. Generally speaking, what we're talking about or individuals that are granted a driver's license or a commercial driving privilege, um by lieu of Maybe they're a member of the military, etc. We are recommending respectfully that that report be eliminated because we never get questions about that report other than where's your report, please send it in. Anybody have any heartburn about eliminating that. Yes, Sen board. Just, just a question. So let's say we eliminate the report, how hard would it be like if we were evaluating it for us to come to you and, and you do that. I mean, what, Just, just a question. So let's say we eliminate the report, how hard would it be like if we were evaluating it for us to come to you and, and you do that. I mean, would it, to get the usually there's a very limited number of individuals that are reported on that report that were granted the expedited licensure, so, but to obtain the information, very simple to get from our Office of Motor Vehicle and the report also is, as noted, it's one hour's worth of work. So it's, it's not a, it's not a heavy lift to provide it, but if we would, if it's not needed and it's not useful. It could be eliminated if the body was interested in doing so. Everybody OK with eliminating this or attempting to litigate it, eliminate it, of course, we still got to get it all the way through the process, so. OK. Anybody from the audience, any questions on that one? OK, so we're gonna mark that one to They did the to get the repeal done. OK. All right, let's go to the next one. Thank you, Mr. Chair. The next report is for the assessment coordination division of DFA. It's the annual report due by June 15th of all taxable property in the state, including the assessed value. This statutory report DFA, it does require 200 hours annually, but this is a very important report for purposes of our counties and other taxpayers, so we are recommending that we continue that report as we're specified in statute. Probably pretty self-explanatory. Anyone have any questions on that one. Anyone from the audience? OK, that'll be a report that we keep. OK We can go to the next one. Also, the this is the assessment coordination division report. It is a statutory annual report of the changes to any part of the formula used to determine the value of land or the capitalization rate. It is a report that requires 1100 hours annually to prepare so. It's We certainly don't have certainly going to recognize that there is some usefulness to the information, but we don't have a recommendation. We don't have a recommendation to eliminate it, but we certainly don't have a recommendation that this is necessary to continue, so yeah. We're happy to follow whatever the General Assembly decides to do. some discussion on this one, Senator Petty. Yes, so when we talk about the capitalization rate of atlanta, and I know you're probably not in intricately involved with that, um. And, and any changes. This is, this is good to know that we're at least looking at that. I don't know how from a practical standpoint they're actually applying that we just had a situation where. There was no, uh, Uh Determination on how they arrived at the at the cap rate. Um, but Do you know what the content is and and who provides it each year from the assessment coordination division. I would assume that the our director Sandra Collier would provide that information and be able to, you know, speak to all all the contents of the report, but certainly it's, it's, it's in the statute for a reason, so we certainly can understand that there's a need for the information and, and, and I can certainly take this offline, but it was talking about cap land and cab rate and uh typically you've got a cap rate associated with with income producing property buildings, not just land. So is it just for land or Is it land and and and all real estate. I want to make sure that I give you the right information so if it's OK, I could follow up with that question, Senator Petty, would that be OK? Thank you. OK, any other, any other questions, of course they don't have a recommendation on this one, Mm It's 100 hours, so it is very significant, so I mean, I think. I think it's one of those things that, you know, if if we have members that are using it or or if we need it, then I mean, we need to do it or, you know, or amend it or do something to try to cut out on the hours because I don't. Yes, Senator Hammer. Just out of curiosity, these reports, do you Are any of these requested by individual members throughout the year. Or do you keep track? Of how many members might request any of these reports as opposed to just waiting to the time you've got to present them. Generally speaking, Senator, my experience has been when the report is provided to the General Assembly and it's placed on an agenda for consideration. That's typically the time that we receive any any or have any feedback or any communication about the report. There are going to be some circumstances from time to time where there is an interest, for example, The property tax relief trust fund report, you know, we get, we get asked about that from time to time throughout the year, but some reports Very little to no contact. Secretary Hudson, yes sir. Jim Hudson, Secretary of DFA. I believe that is strictly land. It's not improvements upon the land, just the land. Um, it is relatively stable, I think, year to year. So it may be one of those reports that we just kind of move from annual to maybe Every 5 years or something like that. Um, just as a way just to make sure we're still capturing the information, but I don't think we see much changes year to year and the methodology, more importantly, is not changing year, year to year, which is really what the report. Is driving at. That, that's a, there's, that's a very good. Very good thought. Here's the thing. So we're actually got in statute that you're preparing this whole report. I wonder if we should just change the statute that just says that in the event you change the formulary on that, that you'll just report it to the appropriate appropriate committee of AOC, uh. You know, if we did that, if you just changed that one specific formulary, you know, as it related to that and that would make that you could do that and 30 minutes. Honestly, I read the report for the first time this past year and the, the group was tickled to death that I had a question because nobody's ever ever asked a question about it before, so. Anybody have any That what it says. No, they're actually preparing well, well, according to this, they're actually preparing a report annually and it's, and it's taken a 100 hours to prepare. reported changes to any part of the formula used to determine, I guess the statute itself probably dictates that they're doing something annually would be my guess. I just, as far as studying that statute, I haven't. Yeah, but I thought it just said that you're only going to report for provide a report on the changes. Yeah, I think what we're providing is a report on the methodology that we're using to value the land, which would include, you know, any changes that we're making in that. So every single you were asking to just to report on the changes, but I think that's already the report. Well, I don't know because I don't know all the language was in that code right there, that language is with I'm gonna think the language within that code is requiring. Something more detailed, but I'm just. OK. I think we're fixing to be able to figure out a way to eliminate a 100 hours of DF and 8 time here. It's, it's a comprehensive report on the methodology that we're using and then highlighting the changes as well. So unless anybody has any heartburn here, why don't, why don't, yes, Senator Petty follow up question since we had some additional information there. So the, the methodology, if we're talking about true real estate cap rates. That's, I mean, that's how we arrive at the value that you then assess the tax on, uh, cap rates are market sensitive. They, they go up, they go down. That is relatively easy to gather. There's a lot of uh sources that produce those, but the methodology itself shouldn't Change, and I don't know if that was what Senator Dima was talking about or not, but I mean, what is, I mean what is taking 100 hours if the methodology is not changing. The cap rates maybe you, maybe you were updating, but what I mean, based on what you're saying, and I agree it should be relatively stable. What, what's changing or what, what are we reporting that's taking 100 hours. I think it's valuable information because like I said a minute ago, there's, there's some guidance out there that has no basis for the guidance on how We arrived at a cap rate, uh, you know, for, for value of the property, but, but what in this, I guess, is in the sport, and I don't want to belabor this, look at the report, if we could just hold it or something, maybe, maybe we can do that. Maybe what we can do is just recirculate the report to you. I'll let you have an opportunity to look at it and then we can talk more as a team about what really is driving the workload on it. Senator Dimay. one of the things I just ask, like on a report like this. I mean, yes, members occasionally if there's a problem with how we're valuing chicken houses may dig into the report and it's, it's a place to go look and see, but I'm also assuming it's a lot of work that you're already doing. I would think. And in a lot of these things like we may not be asking about it, but it's probably Benefit to DFA. And so for just doing away with it, to do away with it because it's 100 hours and we're not. Or the perception is that the legislature's not looking at it. Doesn't mean that it's not a valuable report for the public or for DFA to have a review. It's essentially, you know, I mean, I, I know for myself like oftentimes, you know, Requiring a look at something. is good for Me Um, yeah, not, I'm not talking in this context, just in the real world. So like I would like to, when we're walking through these, and I know I haven't been in here, if it provides benefits to y'all, that's a whole, a whole another thing. And if we're going to be doing it anyway, let's make it available to the public and move on. And, and just, and I know that you had that other commitment their recommendation on this one is they didn't, they didn't really have a recommendation. They've been telling us keep reports or they didn't see the need. This one they they were. Yeah, they were actually neutral on but I guess that's the thing on this one since it is such a large, a large amount, maybe we could just go one step further and let's bring that report. Let's see if this what this committee's kind of thinking about it, whether or not we need to keep it or maybe if there's a way to amend it to streamline it that y'all can save 40 hours or whatever we need to do. Yeah, I'd like to get a better handle on what has changed like overall, if you look at a five-year look back, what changed? And if nothing changed, then maybe we can just kind of. shorten the frequency a little bit, OK, but we'll we'll come back to you with a recommendation about about that. Yes, yes, we're just gonna wait on some more information on it and we'll do it at a. Future meeting. Yes, sir. Senator Hammer. So these hours are listed on these categories. These are In our that employees are paid to produce these reports. Is that correct? So The scattering of hours is reflective over a scattering of employees. It's not one employee or two employees that are dedicated to preparing these reports. Is it a signed out to different people. Yes sir, you are correct that many of these reports have multiple employees that are working on the information to compile the report. There are some of these reports that are kind of the smaller our hours required where one person can be responsible for assimilating the report and getting it. Sent over to the General Assembly, but these larger, um, Requirements of um Reports generally we have a team of individuals and then the 100 hours we would be a reflection of all the individual's contribution, not just one person. OK. All right, thank you. OK. Any further comment from the audience members. OK, so we're gonna study that one a little further. Try to, try to help out. Right OK, we go to the next one. Mr. Chair is the Office of Administrative Services, the size of the fleet and cost effectiveness of state-owned vehicles. It's required annually by September the first required by statute. DFA's recommendation is that we maintain that report as required. OK. Senator Hester. I mean, I've recently seen a uh. An executive branch announcement that they're moving away from a lot of state-owned vehicles. Is that accurate? Are you expecting that? I think we'll still have a state fleet. I think what we're trying to figure out is what's the optimum size and then should we be pooling that to the greatest extent possible. So we don't have unutilization in individual departments, so I think we're still going to have a fleet. This may be one that once we get, you know, our strategy fully baked on the Arkansas forward for fleet. We may come back and say there's a better way to present this information, but that's still kind of work in progress at this point. Anyone else? I Yep, Senator Hammer. Called I had a report done like 8 months ago, 9 months ago, where they pulled the times of which a vehicle actually moved versus the time that it sat there at the age of the vehicle and all that kind of stuff like share that with you because it seems like there are a lot of vehicles. Maybe a lot's an extreme number, but they just sit there for an extended period of time, so I guess tag on Senator Hester's question. Are you looking at the process of eliminating some of those vehicles or what are you doing to capture that? Yeah, we've identified about 300. Vehicles that we believe are underutilized. And we're having conversations with the departments to either substantiate how you're going to increase the utilization immediately or alternatively get it over to M&R and get it out of the inventory, so we're not going to have under yourized vehicles going forward. It's just, it's just not going to be tolerated. It didn't recently, I may be wrong, but didn't didn't recently sent a batch of vehicles over to M&R. We did, yeah, that's I've got a list, you know, for the whole state, for every department of those unrealized vehicles, and I'm regularly asking for updates, you know, is that This has been Minar yet and if not, why not? OK. All right. Thank you. OK They want to want to keep it, everybody here in agreement to Keeping that report. Of course we changed something on how we're doing it. Maybe we need to add something about how we're paying employees on that mileage and things of that nature on their personal vehicles, but I guess we'll look at that when the time gets here. Yes sir, I think there might actually be some proposed legislation that will have touching the fleet a little bit later in session, and this may get kind of incorporated into that. OK. All right. is the of The DFNA request that that some of the members and myself actually know about where we were doing something with the mileage, does that relate to what Secretary Hudson's talking about, Paul? No, sir, make sure that that wasn't somehow tied in there. differently. Yes sir. OK. OK, the next report, OK, the next report is the Revenue division report of employees in extra help positions for more than 7 months. It's an annual report required by special language approximately 2 hours to prepare, um, our recommendation is respectfully that we eliminate that. Just to save the time. OK. Let me ask you this on the special language with that, so that's just you, you're gonna have to either You're gonna have to come before special language. So that's a, well, there's actually a report that the special language is requiring. You're going to have to come before the special language committee to uh to take it out. So why don't we just deal with that particular one in special language and we might just, uh, whenever we're in there, just reiterate what we're doing as far as trying to eliminate reports, and this is You know, we need to do it that way. Probably it and the next one, but we'll go ahead and Discuss the other one same issue, yes sir. OK, and then the next was one of the reports that is required by the revenue division. Federal income tax changes. It's required by Arkansas statute. Let me, I'm sorry, Paul. This is on your new sheet you have. So if you're looking at your old one from last time, these two won't be on there. It'll be on the new sheet. So I don't know which report everybody's looking at. So it's a DNA DNA revenue division, federal income tax changes. That's correct. OK. And also one thing that's important is federal tax changes can be incredibly complex, of course, our members of our tax sections we keep abreast of things that we need to be aware of, certainly for administration of the Arkansas income tax. The issue is, is that, you know, in terms of the valuable value of this. information and the amount of time that would be required to commit to it is um we would recommend that respectfully that we discontinue that report. OK. Who, who's the user of that report? It's federal. Like That's, that's a fair point, Senator Hester. I think that typically if you are going to be interested in federal tax changes, you would go to the Internal Revenue Service. That's my thought, or also there are um Large companies that are dedicated to providing these resources to tax practitioners. I think our, our individuals should be tasked with providing information regarding our own state's tax laws as opposed to trying to summarize federal tax law. Yeah, Center petty just a little more about the report, is it just summarizing the federal tax changes or then identifying the differences in the Arkansas and federal tax. What what is the that that would that could potentially be the usefulness of the reports of identifying the the disparities between the two because there's a state that is selectively adopts the Internal Revenue Code, certainly right now our we we'd like to be as current as possible, but it's it's up to the General Assembly to adopt any changes. Those federal tax changes that are adopted are considered during the session if they are, if they rise to the level of importance, for example, the federal changes on depreciation and expense of property that that was an issue that was important to The General Assembly in previous session where we We had a much less generous provision that then the federal government had provided, but there are so many provisions in the federal tax code where we are out of step. The federal tax code is, is such a moving target from time to time. It would be very difficult to Um, encompassed in that report all of this, the disparities between the two, and instead focus upon those that are important by from time to time if you, if a member of the General Assembly wanted us to evaluate what it would cost to make a change that we can be tasked to do so with being provided with a draft bill. I agree with Senator Hester though, if it's just summarizing the federal tax and it's a no brainer, but if it's for some reason past, you know, So, uh, General Assembly or whatever is trying to capture the differences or major differences in in Arkansas and federal. I think that that may be, you know, maybe there's something there we don't know about. Senator can I ask a question of staff? like. You guys can see when we this was originally requested or drafted. Do you get, you keep notes on why the member asked, do you keep that? You don't, so we couldn't look back and see what the member was. Yeah. and they, I mean, do you know that's a good question, um, this particular, on this particular code, how long it's been there like it was 1989. So yeah. And also it does require this look at how it may affect Arkansas taxpayers differently, but certainly that would be a pretty large undertaking to provide um that was before the internet. OK, so any, anybody have any objection, then we're going to just say that that this is going to be one we're going to prepare to eliminate everybody OK with that? Anybody from the audience will anything to weigh on that. I'm going to reiterate though, I do think that it's, it's kind of like the statement you just made that stuck in my head, you know, the federal tax law is a is a huge monster that differs from us in tons of ways and trying to incorporate all that into one port is just almost, uh, you know, I don't even know how you do it. So, you know, the thing is, is whenever we're doing those talking points whenever Senator Crow is gonna be presenting these and then also in the house, because I could see some members probably have questions on that whenever they just first see it. I think those explanations are going to be of utmost importance to us whenever we get on the floor. Yes, sir. OK. All right, and then fortunately this new sheet has a line items, so, or the line, so I guess we're on 42. That's right. This is the last report that I that we have on our list that's DFA report. It is required by our regulatory division from the alcoholic Beverage Control. It's a report that's provided under statute to discuss ABC permits, alcohol manufacturing, taxes collected and fees collected, um, it, it would require an investment in time to provide the report. In minimal interest that we've received in the report individually, certainly there may be members of Assembly that are interested in that information, but given the time required versus the level of interest that we've seen respectfully, we would recommend that that wouldn't be discontinued. Yes, sir, Senator Hammer. OK, so a while ago I asked you, and we got diverted a little bit about how many requests you get from legislators or from the bureau who might be using legislators using that and there's gonna be ongoing annual thing every time we come together, I won't be here next time, but y'all will. Is this going to be back each time? The this report. Well, that's what's happening now because of statutes. So what we're doing is is asking them to repeal it, so it'll be. Totally eliminated. Right, but I mean This type of report is going to be presented to tax and revenue every time we come into session. No. Senator Hester had been proactive, you know, so actually, you know, he's done this across, I don't want to speak for you, but he's done this across all of our committees, so this is just like a uh a cleanup right now that's, yeah, so no, it will not be. Well, the reason I'm I'm going with extraordinary type deal where I was going with this in the future, I don't I don't know if it's serve any value or not, but I'm thinking if you guys don't get a request from BLR or legislator throughout the year, and these are reports are, you know, being produced some very legitimate, some ongoing process to determine whether they're of value or not. I mean, if you told me we didn't have one single legislator or one single request from BLR on report whatever, I might kind of consider that and how important is it then based on the actual interest in it other than it's going to be produced and maybe those that information is going to be asked in the annual report once presented. Yeah, that that is on column G. If anyone's asked about it in the prior years. They say no or yes. That was one of my original questions like, our members asking about this, is someone using it? OK, I'm sorry, I didn't see the heading at the top or anything like that. So that's what we could have, yeah, I didn't have a heading so it's hard to know what that is, but that was what column G was our members asking about this is someone, got you. That's right, that's good information to have since we're on the last one because I've asked staff, I said, what does that over mean? you. And and no news, Senator. Thank you. I was hitting would have been nice. I thought that those were at first I thought those were DFNA's recommendations. They, yeah, they, they, some of these, yeah, they would not match up with the. OK. Anybody from the audience have any Any questions on the last one, so it's uh that would be something we need to. To do the repeal loan, so if we could get that prepared. And again, talking points might be so if the if the We will be certain to circle back with the sponsor of the legislation to make sure that we have a summary of each report that would be helpful for when the bills presented in committee. And on the floor. OK, well that, I will say one of the big one on our uh our uh. Budget books we've already had an initial meeting on that. We'll see if there's any movement there. I understand the impetus, but uh we'll see if there's any movement. We, we're working on it. So yeah. And just a point of clarification that would be the the talking points would be tied to those that we're going to either repeal or change the The the how often the report is provided, correct? Yes sir. So one other thing as we went down through there, there may be some that we were going to go back and look at. I think we've skipped over some. I hope somebody here was, uh, keeping up with that, I think. OK, so Brandon, Mr. Smith was keeping up with those, so if you want to, we'll just let you all gather that information and then just, you know, at your convenience, just if you'll get with Mr. Smith and we'll get that back on the agenda. So if y'all want to. Do it next week or? The following week just whatever, whatever's best for you all. OK, good work. We appreciate it. Yeah, thank you all. OK, with that, OK, uh, so there's nothing else on the agenda today from AEC and the rest of those. Right. As you can see at the very top of the report we have some of the other with the AEDC uh tax appeals. They'll be here next week to discuss theirs just like DFNA. sat down there and did this, so next week we'll just plan on finishing ours up other than what the, the few that DFNA is gonna come back with some extra information. All right, with that, we're adjourned.