A blockbuster proposal to repeal Louisiana’s personal and corporate income taxes and to increase sales taxes will form the centerpiece of Gov. Bobby Jindal’s tax agenda for the legislative session. “Our goal is to eliminate all personal income tax and all corporate income tax in a revenue-neutral manner,” the governor tells LaPolitics. “We want to keep the sales tax as low and flat as possible.” He adds that his team is meeting with every legislator over the coming weeks to discuss the details of the tax reform plan. Combined, the two income taxes are projected to bring in almost $3 billion this fiscal year. To replace lost revenue and keep the plan revenue-neutral, Jindal will propose raising the sales tax and broadening its base, possibly by taxing services and repealing other exemptions, according to legislators and business leaders who have been briefed on the plan.
—Sen. David Vitter, who often counsels the governor and legislators to be bold, took his own advice as the new ranking minority member of the Environment and Public Works Committee. Right off, he fired most of the staff who had served his predecessor, Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla. Drawing from his Senate staff, Vitter named his legislative director, Zak Baig, to be minority staff director; and his energy and environment counsel, Bryan Zumwalt, to be the EPW chief counsel.
They said it: “I feel like I’m diagonally parked in a parallel universe.” —Laura Badeaux, director of the Louisiana Center for Women and Government, at the investiture of 1st Circuit Chief Judge Vanessa Guidry-Whipple, the first woman to serve as chief judge.
(John Maginnis publishes LaPolitics Weekly, a newsletter on Louisiana politics, at LaPolitics.com.)
