State representative weighs in on possibility of eliminating state income tax

SHREVEPORT, La. (KSLA) - Residents of Louisiana may not have to pay state income tax in the future.

On Tuesday, Sept. 13, the House Ways and Means Committee met to discuss the issue.

MORE>>> La. lawmakers revisit ditching state income tax

Rep. Richard Nelson told KSLA sister station, WAFB, that the goal is to find a way to give more money to local governments. On Wednesday, KSLA’s Tayler Davis spoke with Rep. Sam Jenkins to break down the process of what happens next.

Nelson says there are a lot of factors to weigh in the situation.

“We’ve had backroom discussions about eliminating personal sales taxes. Every time we look at it, at the budget, the problem that we run into is that everybody looks to increase the sales tax and there’s a lot of our citizens who can’t bare the increase in sales taxes,” he said.

Nelson says the collection of personal income taxes for the state is around $4 billion. That would be lost if this eliminated.

“The two areas that will be affected the most are education K-12, colleges and universities, and healthcare,” he said.

Currently, nine states don’t have personal income tax, Texas included. Mary Pile now lives in Shreveport but has several businesses in Texas.

“When you’re just paying for Texas it’s just a federal level and a local level, then we’re not paying the state level even though state gets their money. But it just seems like you’re paying more taxes for the three entities rather than just local or federal,” she said.

Once a tax structure is made and analyzed, it will be introduced in the legislative session next year.

FULL INTERVIEW WITH REP. JENKINS

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