Today the MN House Taxes Committee hear on two broadband-related bills. I will post them separately for easily search access. They started with HF951 (Davids) – Sales and use tax exemption for telecommunications or pay television services machinery and equipment modified, which was laid over for possible inclusion in omnibus.
HF951 (Davids) – Sales and use tax exemption for telecommunications or pay television services machinery and equipment modified.
Description of the bill
- Extend exemption for sales take for telephone and pat TV even if not used exclusively for telephone/TV
Testifiers:
Sarah Pysick CTIA
- This deletes the work primarily – it will modernize the bill
- Current bill was adopted in 2001 – that was a long time ago
- Wireless and wireline service provide telephone/TV/internet
- Provides clarity and certainty to providers
Brent Christensen MTA
- This fixes a problem that none of us know would happen
- The tax exemption has been changed several times over the years – the intention was not to be for telephone/TV only
- The tax folks have been reading this law differently, which is leading to confusion
Questions
Q: This is a $250M tax to us that will go away. Is there an attempt to do this without tax cut. Why must we always narrow the tax base. What is the benefit to taxpayers?
If the bill had passed the way it was intended in 2017, we would not have collected so much money. We have been over collected. Also, the less we pay in taxes, the more we spend on building broadband.
Q: Does this extend from a digital side – like YouTube – or broadcast?
This is capital expenditures – putting fiber in the ground.
Q: We need to recognize that when taxes increase to corporations, they pass the expense down to the consumer.
Q: This helps clear confusion.
Q: Are companies really using this money to invest in buildout?
Laid over for possible inclusion in omnibus.