Revenue & Taxation- House

With that, I'm going to see if um vice chair has any remarks he'd like to make before I move on. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, David Ray, House District 69. I'm just excited to be here. Um, this is my second term on Rev and tax, and I think if you look at all the committees and the subject matter that they um that they review, you'd be hard pressed to find another area where we've made more substantive significant progress for the people of this state and in the area of tax policy over the last 10 years or so, and so I'm excited to continue that work both uh what we can do here in the session and then once we get out of session really using the interim period to our advantage to plan strategically for the for the future and the path ahead, so I'm uh happy to be back on this committee and looking forward to working with all of you again. Thank you. At this time, I want to go ahead and introduce our staff. We have Brandon Smith, who's our analyst. I think everybody recognizes them. We have Teresa Smith over there doing our administrative and then we have Jerry Thompson and he is actually shadowing and he's working with the Black Caucus, so he's shadowing. So we're glad to have them here, um, I know there will be a big help to us during the session as we move forward. Um, with that members, I would like for you to take the time to introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about you and what you're doing on this committee. And anything you think is relevant for us to know, and with that representative Jean will start with you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman Lane Jean. I'm from District 99, which I cover parts of Columbia, Lafayette, and Miller County in southwest corner of the state. Uh, this is my 8th term and this is my 7th time to be on Reverend Tax. On the reason they didn't get on it one time I picked the uh for a friend. I thought he was my friend, uh, a spot on education so he could get on there because he was down in seniority and uh that year Re tax filled up before I can get back on it, but I've, I've been on reent tax for the last 7 to 7 of the 8 times I've been here. But anyway, uh, look forward to working with everybody. I'm Jim Hoyden. It's my 4th term and um I look forward to working with all of you. had the opportunity to share with most of you. And uh just, just glad to be here. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Ron McNair, I represent District 5, which is South Boone County, uh. was served on rev and tax, uh, took a venture and education last term, so I'm happy to be back here. Thank you. Rick McClure District 29, most of Hot Spring in a small portion of Saline County and uh two terms ago I was in here and not last time, so this is my 2nd time I'm looking forward to a good session. John Maddox, District 86. That is Olive Polk, Montgomery, and a portion of Howard County. Um, this is my first term on Reverenda, and I look forward to being here and working with everyone and potentially continuing to do the good work and cutting Arkansas's taxes. Unless Warren District 84, which is in Garland County and City of Hot Springs, uh, I am serving in my 5th term. I've been on Rebenda all 5 terms. I got broken in by Joe Jett. Uh, with the internet sales tax and they decided they would start with the lowest ranking member, and I was number 100, so I had to make the first vote on internet sales tax and I was a yes, so I probably made enemies right there, but I stood my ground. Representative Les Eaves uh represents Cersei, Kensett and Higginson, and I'm significantly younger than Lane Jean, so this is only my 6th time on this committee and uh just really excited that we can finally have a good chairman on this committee. Oh Um, Richard McGrew District 85, which is Western Garland County in the Hot Springs area, Hot Springs Village and this is my 3rd term, and I've been here all 3 terms, so I'm John Car I represent uh center portion of Rogers in Northwest Arkansas. This is my 3rd term, 2nd time on Revventax, and I'm excited to be here. Representative Johnny y. District 36. covered About half of Poinsett County and about a third of Craighead County. And I've watched this committee the last 10 years, and it looks like there's been some very, very good tax cuts that come through, but very, very Pinpoint to where it would be a good situation without any type of throwback that would be Too much. It looked like it was done exactly right, and I'm just glad to be with you all. I'm Rebecca Burks, uh, district 11. I cover portions of Springdale, Lowell, and Rogers. I'm in my 2nd term in the house, and my 2nd term on this committee. I appreciate the thoughtful work that we did last session and I'm excited to start again. Good morning. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm James Eaton. I think I'm the only freshman here. I represent District 26, which is Madison County and parts of Franklin and Carroll County. This was, uh, I felt very fortunate to get on here. This was my first selection, so it worked out great. Glad to be here. Thank all of y'all and I would like the members and the audience to introduce themselves and we'll start with Secretary Hudson. If you'd like to introduce yourself and your team. end of the table will be fine. Thank you. Good morning members. Jim Hudson, Secretary of DFA. This is on one of our uh home committees for DFA so uh we will be staffing it every time you're here, you know, a large number of us. I'm not sure I'll be here every time, but I'll try to make the most of the meetings, uh, the key staff member for DFA that you need to know is Paul Gehring and Paul, if I can get you just to kind of stand up so they can see you and then Alicia Austin Smith is his deputy as well, um, you know, Paul is our chief legal counsel. EFA, but frankly, I think Paul is the most knowledgeable person about Arkansas income tax and sales tax law in the state of Arkansas so he's just a great resource for you to be familiar with, um, as you file your bills and you know BLR kind of gets the work done. Once we see that language, we'll begin working on any fiscal impacts statements that might be applicable to it. Paul will lead that effort and then any issues or any concerns or suggestions that we have to make your bill better than Paul will be. coordinating that as well and then uh Charlie Collins is over there as well, uh, Charlie leads our revenue division, so yeah, he helps on the effort. Autumn Hemphill was beside him. Uh, she handles our sales tax and use tax. Judy Bowers beside her. Handles income tax. And Eileen Henderson, she's actually in charge of our audit both on the tax sales tax side and the income tax as well, so it is a, a jape as well as one of our attorneys in the revenue division too. Almost missed Joel. And then Robert Brett, um, Robert is, uh, he's in charge of the math in terms of the state budget, so he's a great resource as well. Uh, we're just excited to be here with you in this session and we look forward to a good relationship. Reach out to me personally if you ever have a concern about anything that's going on and something's not moving fast enough. I'll see what I can do to help uh kind of get things going in the right direction for you. Would that have to take any questions you may have. You get a lucky today, no questions. I know that it won't be a pattern. It will not. I appreciate that. And Selby, if you would like to introduce yourself. This is actually my first time at the table, so really excited. Thank you so much, uh, Madam Chair. My name is Selby McAlet. I'm the governor's budget director. I also have the privilege of managing her tax portfolio, so very excited to have been able to cut the income tax 3 times, uh, since the governor's come to office and obviously do a lot of other really important work with this committee, um, please let me know if you have any questions, concerns about either the budget or um any sort of tax related things, uh. Jim, as he mentioned, is, is my spirit guide in this world, but if you have concerns about Jim, let me know too. Thank y'all. Thank you, I appreciate that. Um, really don't see anybody else in the audience, but you've met most of the people that we'll be dealing with in this actual committee, um, we only have one freshman, so most of us already know who it is. Um, what I want to do is kind of tell you how I'm gonna try to approach um session this time. What we're gonna do is, of course, everybody knows in this committee, we're not gonna take any votes because we don't really know what we've got to work with, um, we don't know what we're gonna have. Will's as session goes forward, we'll know that. Every one of us in here would like to cut every tax that we hate, but we all know that if we do that, we blow the budget. So we have to be delivered in what we do. We have to think about what we're doing, but in the same instance, um, what I'm going to allow us to do is if the bill has no physical impact, either the general revenue or special language, then we can go ahead and take a vote on that, OK? If it's just a cleanup bill, something that we've got to do technical. have any trouble with that. If it is a bill that affects a general revenue or a special language. We are not gonna take any votes on that. We're just not gonna do it till we know what we've got to work with. With that being said, we're gonna, I'm going to allow you to present your bills. We're gonna hear the bills, and we're gonna debate them, but we're not gonna take any votes. So that way at least you can present your bill. We know what we're working with. So that's kind of how I see us running the committee this time, um, with that, if there are bills on the agenda. We're gonna start here on Thursday. If we have the physical impact. So just be aware that if you've got a bill filed and you don't want to run it, you need to let me know you want to put it on deferred, so that we'll have those on deferred. Otherwise, we're gonna do the work so we know what we've got bills we're looking at and then we're gonna move forward, but we're not gonna, again, I'm gonna emphasize, we're not gonna take any votes. And I've had members approach me about it's a small impact or it's a large impact. I don't care if it's small or large, we're not. going to take a vote. So Any questions? Alright. See none, that's kind of how we're gonna work and with that, I appreciate every one of y'all willingness to serve on this committee because I do think it's an important committee. It's an important committee that works with budget because everybody knows if we don't handle this committee properly, we're a budget buster. So we've got to be able to handle this correctly. With that, I appreciate everybody coming and we are adjourned.