Transcript Prepared By the Clerk of the Legislature Transcriber's Office Rough Draft

Tax Modernization Committee September 23, 2013

[LR155]

The Committee on Tax Modernization met at 4:00 p.m. on September 23, 2013, at Western Nebraska Community College at Scottsbluff, Nebraska, for the purpose of conducting a public hearing on LR155. Senators present: Galen Hadley, Chairperson; Paul Schumacher, Vice Chairman; ; Kathy Campbell; Tom Hansen; John Harms; Burke Harr; Charlie Janssen; Beau McCoy; ; Jeremy Nordquist; Pete Pirsch; ; and Kate Sullivan. Senators absent.

SENATOR HADLEY: I'd like to get the meeting started, if we could. This is a meeting of the Tax Modernization Committee. My name is Galen Hadley. I represent District 37, which includes Kearney and Buffalo County. I'm Chair of the Revenue Committee and Chair of the Tax Modernization Committee. I'd like to start on my right and have each of the senators introduce themselves and tell which district they represent, if they would.

SENATOR SCHUMACHER: I'm Paul Schumacher from District 22 which extends, basically, from Columbus to Stanton.

SENATOR PIRSCH: I'm State Senator Pete Pirsch, Legislative District 4, that's in Douglas County.

SENATOR HARMS: I'm John Harms, I represent the 48th District, Scotts Bluff County.

SENATOR BOLZ: Senator Kate Bolz, I represent District 29 in south-central Lincoln.

SENATOR MELLO: Heath Mello, I represent District 5, which includes south Omaha and midtown Omaha.

SENATOR CAMPBELL: I'm Kathy Campbell and I represent District 25, which is east Lincoln and Lancaster County.

1 Transcript Prepared By the Clerk of the Legislature Transcriber's Office Rough Draft

Tax Modernization Committee September 23, 2013

SENATOR HANSEN: I'm Tom Hansen from North Platte, representing Lincoln County.

SENATOR HARR: Burke Harr, Legislative District 8, the true midtown Omaha.

SENATOR SULLIVAN: Kate Sullivan of Cedar Rapids, I represent District 41, a nine-county area in central Nebraska.

SENATOR McCOY: Beau McCoy, District 39, western Douglas County.

SENATOR NORDQUIST: Jeremy Nordquist, District 7, downtown and south Omaha. I'm very glad to be in Scottsbluff.

SENATOR HADLEY: Thank you. And I would like to echo that. Thank you very much for allowing us to come out to Scottsbluff to have this hearing. It's the first of five hearings we're going to have around the state. I'd like to go through some of the procedural matters before we get started. There is a green sheet. I would like to have you, if you would, to fill it out and put it in the box up on the stand along with any handout that you want to give, that the committee could read later. Okay? You need to have the green sheet filled out so that we can have a listing of the people who do testify. When you testify, if you would state and spell your name; state and spell your name so we get it correctly. Please turn off any cell phones that you might have. We would appreciate that very much. Today, we're going to deal with property taxes, sales taxes, and income tax. We're going to start with property tax and we're going to spend an hour on property tax. We're going to spend an hour on sales tax. We're going to spend an hour on income tax. When you come up to testify, if you want to testify on all of them, you can; all of them at once, that is absolutely fine. You can certainly do that. I will...at the end of four minutes, I will put four fingers up. That will mean you have one more minute left. At the end of five minutes, I will just put five up and I would like you to close your testimony at that point in time. We want to do this in fairness to have as many people as possible

2 Transcript Prepared By the Clerk of the Legislature Transcriber's Office Rough Draft

Tax Modernization Committee September 23, 2013

testify. I want to give y