North Dakota keeps revising its revenue forecasts down, and actual revenue collections keep coming in even lower. It’s a reality that’s complicating the Legislature’s efforts to budget for the next biennium. While revenue collections are still coming in ahead of pre-oil boom levels, biennium to date, nobody seems certain about where the floor is for…
North Dakota Lost Nearly $2 Billion In Taxable Sales During Third Quarter Of 2015
“Taxable sales and purchases were $5.763 billion for July, August and September of 2015, a drop of nearly 25 percent over those months in 2014,” the press release from North Dakota Tax Commissioner Ryan Rauschenberger’s office states. That’s ugly, though Rauschenberger puts a positive spin on the numbers by pointing out that we’re still up…
Selling Stuff Online? The North Dakota Tax Commissioner Is Watching
Over at Watchdog today I have a story about a Bismarck man who, after selling about an item a week online for six years on BisManOnline.com, got a letter from the Tax Commissioner’s office accusing him of not remitting sales tax collections to the state. What’s interesting about the incident – aside from the fact…
Mandan Park District Gave Parent Contact Info To Group Pushing Sales Tax Hike For Sports Complex
When Mandan resident Justin Gerhardt received a phone call on June 8 from a woman urging him to vote yes to approve a sales tax to fund a new sports facility in his community he wondered how the woman had gotten a hold of his contact information. “She stated that I had a child in…
City Debt Triples As Minot Voters Consider $88 Million Rec Center
Here’s some local news for you Minot area readers. As you know I’m not a big fan of the Minot Park District’s proposed $88 million recreation center and water park, called the MARC or Minot Area Recreation Center. It was proposed in January and rushed to the ballot. Voters will decide its fate tomorrow (here’s…
Video: Senator George Sinner Accuses Republicans Of Partisanship Over Sales Tax Bill
State Senator George Sinner, a Demcorat from Fargo, introduced SB2223 to exempt clothing from the sales tax. Originally the bill also would have provided an appropriation from the state to replace local sales tax revenues lost as a result of the exemption. Today an amended version of the bill came to the floor for approval,…
James Kerian: The Party Matters
North Dakota conservatives often complain that we don’t get much for the Republicans holding every office in Bismarck that is elected on the state wide ballot and a supermajority in both houses of the state legislature. Spending at the state level has grown astronomically. The crony capitalism of targeted sales and property tax exemptions has…
North Dakota Ranks 6th In Nation For Corporate Income Tax Collections
George Mason University’s Mercatus Center has an interesting study out about taxes in the various states, and they’ve produced some revealing maps to go along with it. Like the one above, which shows North Dakota as having the sixth highest per-capita corporate income tax collections in the nation, coming in right behind California. That is…
Corporate Tax Cuts Are Ok As Long As They're Democrat Tax Cuts
Democrats in North Dakota gripe endlessly about income tax relief, claiming that they’re ok with tax relief for individuals but against tax relief for “out of state corporations.” Forget that any sort of broad tax relief for business is, by necessity, going to include out-of-state businesses which operate in the state. And why shouldn’t it?…
ND House Tax Committee To Hear Bill Reducing The State Sales Tax
There are a ton of tax proposals being considered by the North Dakota legislature this session. From property taxes to the income tax, there are a lot of ideas floating around about how to give taxpayers at least some of their money back out of the windfall in revenues the state government is enjoying. Today…