Panel approves bill to separate industry‑level tax‑benefit report from Tax Exemption Budget

Senator Reese told the committee SB318 aims to address timing and data‑quality problems with the Tax Exemption Budget (TEB). He said the TEB’s inclusion of parish‑level data can be misleading when businesses operate across multiple parishes, and that removing and creating a separate NAICS‑based Business Tax Benefit Report will help the legislature evaluate industry‑level incentives and revenue loss.

Deputy Secretary Brandy Averett (Department of Revenue) explained the NAICS sector information will be removed from the TEB statute and placed in a new statute requiring a separate report; the new report will include the same information arranged by industry and will have a later annual deadline (moved from March 1 to September 1) to give the department more time to compile accurate NAICS reporting. Averett said the TEB will retain aggregate five‑year revenue‑loss figures but the industry breakdown will appear in the separate report.

Miss Kolpinski, who explained the amendment set, said most changes were technical while two amendments (nos. 5 and 6) were substantive and related to removal of parish‑level reporting and creation of the separate industry report. After questions from committee members about confidential data and the definition of confidential information, the committee adopted amendment set 1,427,820 and reported SB318 as amended.