(Cass Co) The Cass County Board of Supervisors this morning approved a resolution supporting the present Local Option Sales and Service Tax.
Board Chairman Steve Baier said the people voted on the Local Option Sales and Service Tax this way and they would like to keep it this way.
The resolution in part states; the voters of Cass County and citizens have voted to enact a one-cent local options sales tax and the revenue derived from the tax is used for property tax relief, road and bridge improvements and Cass County betterment, and the residents of Cass County have grown to rely on these revenues as a means to reduce property taxes. The 2023 legislation session has seen the introduction of Senate File 550, which proposes to convert the local option sales tax efforts into a statewide sales tax and impose the local option sales tax in every jurisdiction, thereby triggering the constitutional amendment to require an allocation of three-eighths of a cent to the Iowa Water and Land Legacy Iowa Trust Fund.
Supervisor Steve Green….
Green said he is a big proponent of having some state money going towards the Iowa Water and Land Legacy Trust but, he said, if the state wants to raise that money they can raise their own three-eighths of a cent tax and not take away what voters have voted to put into the local area.
Senate File 550 sunsets provisions on January 1, 2025 after which no jurisdiction will have the authority to take either a local options sales tax proposal or revenue purpose statement to a vote essentially deleting the local government’s ability to have local option sales taxes.
