STATE HOUSE–Indiana is now expected to have about $5 billion dollars more in the bank than was expected in budget forecasts.The legislature may decide in the upcoming session in January if you will get some direct benefit out of that in a tax cut, or if next year may not be so good to the state budget.
Dr. Tim Brown (R-Crawfordsville), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, supports a tax cut.
“I think we’ll still continue to have the discussion and debate between the House and the Senate. This revenue forecast supports our position,” he said. “Citizens have worked hard and deserve a break.”
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Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ryan Mishler (R-Bremen), sounded a bit more cautious, meeting with reporters at the Statehouse Thursday. His belief is that the legislature should look at the possibility of paying off some debt, and should be cautious about next year’s budget, when the money might not be as plentiful.
“It’s very positive news and we’ve all been very careful with how we’ve used our fiscal resources and I think it’s an opportunity to deliberate on what we do with these resources,” he said.
Mishler said the state has some triggers, which include a payback to people that you may have heard about earlier this week. Another is an automatic payment to debt owed to a teacher pension fund.
“’22 is obviously very positive. But, if you look at ’23, are we reaching a new plateau and then the sales tax levels off and then the corporate tax also levels off?” he said. “I think that ’23, following a very positive ’22 is the one we need to look take a look at and obviously we’ll revisit that one year from now.”
