Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: You can mute. Thanks for coming back so promptly. Yes, please. Someday. It's still March 27, and it's still Friday, and it's 01:30, and we are here on an amendment to H-nine 33. Representative North, the floor is yours.

[Rep. Robert Norris]: Thank you, Chair and colleagues, having me in. I've not yet had the privilege of being here for testimony, don't think. Very quickly, and I apologize for coming on third reading rather than earlier, so things have come in at such a rapid pace I couldn't keep up. Bottom line is what this amendment does is provide state tax, income tax relief on social security benefits up through, I can't remember the exact numbers, it's on the order of $150,000 a year, earners of up to $150,000 year filing jointly and a little less than that for individual filers. So, the whole purpose here is to basically finish or continue the work that was started last year when we bumped up the Social Security exemptions, I think by $5,000 on each of those brackets. And this is just taking it to what I think is a more reasonable number, 150,000 ish, I can't remember, it's 152.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: It's all of the thresholds.

[Rep. Robert Norris]: Yeah, roughly doubling the thresholds. So, really just trying to bring some tax relief to the folks in the area that needed the most, putting an upper limit on it, so as not to give tax relief to folks who are not So doing well they're as they currently are.

[James Masland]: And

[Rep. Robert Norris]: the initial JFO estimate of the revenue impact of this was $35,000,000 So it's not super cheap, has an impact. And I date put out to calendar year 2027, so 01/01/2027. So, it wouldn't affect what we're all currently doing, what we're currently voting on, come into play until calendar year 2026 tax year. Yeah, and that's basically what it is. And the intent, like I said, is to give some tax relief to folks. We're willing to spend a lot of money on a lot of things, and so this might encourage us to maybe build a little more. Did you have an idea of how you're going to make up that deficit? Well, hoping that possibly some the measures that we're putting in place, like the bill we just passed, should, over time, reduce the cost of the whole care that we provide. I think there were some nice measures in there to provide some reporting and encourage a downward trend on that. And maybe even encourage a few fewer people to become homeless if we let them keep more of their own tax money. Keep their own money rather than taxing it away from them.

[Unidentified Committee Member (male)]: Yeah, there's Did So, you just

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: say that you thought people were becoming homeless because their social security income was being taxed when they make $100,000 a year?

[Rep. Robert Norris]: That's certainly possible, I guess. It's a possibility. Probably unlikely once you get up to that range, but it depends on the situation.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: We took a lot of testimony on Social Security last year when we passed a pretty significant expansion of the exemption. One of the things that I don't remember the full diagram of, but we spent a lot of time on. It's the way the federal exemptions flow through to the state exemptions. And that functionally, it's like 80 or 90% of Vermonters who receive social security are already completely exempt with the language we passed last year. This is just huge tax policy. It's not clear what we would cut in the budget to do at the eleventh hour. I appreciate you trying to

[Unidentified Committee Member (male)]: push it out. Push it out. Yeah.

[Rep. Robert Norris]: Anything this works.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: We just need to take a lot more testimony on fairly significant tax changes than this. I don't know if you sponsored a bill on this that we didn't get to on our wall yet, but if you wanted to, we could take testimony on it in the future.

[Rep. Robert Norris]: It was extracted from Jim Harrison's bill, was it 74, I think, that carried through. Yeah. So, I basically went to the final conclusion of eight seventy four, took the section six, which is like the highest bracket out of there, and just made that amendment.

[Unidentified Committee Member (male)]: Do I

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: have any questions? Yeah.

[James Masland]: You're right, Madam Chair. Over the years, we've taken a lot of testimony on the Social Security tax section, and we were able last year to bump it favorable a little bit. And as you know, it's quite a balancing act that we're trying to do, you know? Yes. The question someone would ask, I guess it's already been asked is how we're gonna pay for it. So appreciate you coming in. Nice to see you on a sunny day. I would move that we find

[Rep. Robert Norris]: it as favorable. If you're ready

[Unidentified Committee Member (male)]: for that. Yeah. Yeah.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: It's a big motion. Oh, I'm so sorry. What was your motion? Thank you.

[James Masland]: Find it unfavorable. Take your time, chair.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Thank you. Representative Masland asked that we find this unfavorable. All those in favor of finding it unfavorable.

[James Masland]: Please.

[Unidentified Committee Member (male)]: I need a second.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Nope. I don't even know your thoughts. I'm just making sure I understand. I have a

[Unidentified Committee Member (male)]: lot of questions on it, but I guess we're just going to jump right to the vote. Mean, it's okay. You probably can't answer them without doing a bunch of research. Think,

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: I mean That's not even in right now. Right. I'd love

[Unidentified Committee Member (male)]: to know what demographic looks like that we are helping here. We covered pretty much everybody in need with our last year's effort. By in need, I mean, you know, up to a pretty healthy income. I would love to be able to approve this, but there's a $35,000,000 hole. How are we gonna fill that? We're gonna raise another tax to get rid of this. There's no other way, I bet you. So I gotta vote yes for it very reluctantly. I'd love to get rid of this tax if I can. Not at this point, and it's 35,000,000. It was 15,000,000, maybe, but I can't see it. I appreciate it. I'm hungry and miserable.

[Unidentified Committee Member (male)]: Discussion. It's one way, but I've heard a lot of people talk about the possibility, let's look at these retired folks that can't afford their property taxes, and maybe we should have a provision like I believe a few states have as far as, you know, no property tax for individuals over a certain age or a percentage, you know, that sort of. So there's a lot of options out there, I think, to help out the folks in that category. But I think it should all be considered.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: And actually, tax incident study that we're going to get back from JFO will enable us to actually answer exactly the question that you're all asking, which is like, what are we doing for older Vermonters? What income brackets are we leaving out? Where is there a cliff between our property tax credit and our social security exemptions? And maybe next year, we'll actually have the information we need to figure out where that's happening.

[Rep. Robert Norris]: You can speak from personal experience. My wife receives Social Security benefits, and our income is such that we float just above and just below that. So, years our state tax is really high, some years it's a little lower. And so, you know, like, this year, I'm finding myself at a penalty situation because high incomes happened to be a little higher last year because I'm here. It hurt. You know, just that little bit that we had, it's, like, pushed us over the limit. So it it just yeah. Like you said, there's like a cliff there. So just kind of smooth that out, push it up a little bit. So the Social Security benefits that we receive aren't the thing that's causing us to jump over.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: I'm happy to take more testimony about it in the future. But these are, as you said, enormous fiscal decisions that we need hard numbers for before we make them. Anyone else have anything to say?

[Unidentified Committee Member (male)]: You're finish the vote?

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Yeah. We are. Just a second.

[Unidentified Committee Member (male)]: Just to make sure

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: we're done. All those all those in favor of rejecting the amendment. Oh.

[Unidentified Committee Member (male)]: All those opposed. Okay. We've got

[James Masland]: that vote in

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: favor of ten, one, Thank you, Representative Burkhardt. Thank you, Representative North. Well, Lynch, by the way.

[Unidentified Committee Member (male)]: Bill has won't have happened. Yes. Thank you, Rob.

[Unidentified Committee Member (male)]: Before we go, we'll spend on Northviews. You mentioned in line that you might have another one on this film. Yes.

[Unidentified Committee Member (male)]: What?

[Rep. Robert Norris]: Yes. One I'm still working on with JFO to understand the impacts.

[Unidentified Committee Member (male)]: We're on third reading. Senator, I know yet. A minute. You really

[Rep. Robert Norris]: think we're gonna get to third reading on this today?

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: We were supposed to do it immediately now, but it got postponed because we were all sitting here.

[James Masland]: Ah, yeah. Well

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: So I think it's a step after the Tea Bill. Do you think perhaps you could take it up in the Senate?

[Unidentified Committee Member (male)]: Possibly. Okay.

[James Masland]: Yeah. It's like I missed the opportunity.

[Rep. Robert Norris]: Yeah. I'm still I'm still waiting on on the authority to

[James Masland]: give me the the impact.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Okay. Happy to make an introduction to Senate if you need to

[Unidentified Committee Member (male)]: talk then. Alright. Okay.