CHEYENNE— Former State Rep. Bob Tanner Casper did something rare in the Legislature.
It was the 2000 budget session and Tanner was the prime sponsor of 10 bills, including a number that repealed the excise or sales tax exemptions on various products and services.
His co-sponsor was Sen. Roy Cohee, another Casper Republican.
Tanner died recently at age 94 but his obituary referred only briefly to his two terms in the Wyoming House.
It took guts for those two legislators, particularly Tanner, as the lead sponsor.
It was kind of a joke at that time to say if you want to help the economy of a town in Wyoming you get a legislative committee to hold a meeting tor a hearing there on sales and excise tax exemptions. The hamlet will flourish and swell as lobbyists and activists move in to save their special exemptions.
If history is any indication, the phantom committee will more likely add another exemption. This is what happened in the past.
It is a tough issue. We are talking big bucks here. The amount of money the state is losing through sales tax exemptions is in the billions with a “B.”
This is why when the treasury looks sickly and needs feeding, the lawmakers take another crack at all these lucrative exemptions..
Anyway, most of Tanner’s tax exemption bills were rejected during the early committee-of-the whole voice vote. He was, I recall, matter-of-fact about the entire operation; no drama there.
But two bills were not voted down. One that easily passed both House and Senate revoked the tax exemption for sales services and repair of railroad rolling stock. Apparently the railroad did not fight that one.
The surprise was the passage in the House of a Tanner-Cohee bill to eliminate the exemption for bingo cards, pull tabs and raffle tickets offered by charitable and religious organizations.
House Bill 115 passed the House but failed in the Senate on a vote of 10 ayes to 20 noes.
The senators probably got some harsh messages from the Knights of Columbus and similar organizations that depend in income from bingo and the like.
Four years ago Gov. Mark Gordon repeated his desire to examine eliminating sales tax exemptions on certain services to raise money. I don’t know what happened there.
Five years ago in 2019 when Steve Harshman was House Speaker and Drew Perkins was Senate President they tried to build support for a plan to “broaden and lower” the sales tax.
Their idea was to eliminate the exemptions and lower the current state rate of 4 percent by 1 or 1.5 percent to 3 or 2.5 percent. The bill died in the Appropriations Committee.
Harshman offered the following research on Wyoming sales and use taxes.
We have 52 sales/use tax exemptions. In the Emergency Sales Tax Act of 1935, we had 11 exemptions.
Manufacturing equipment originally came in 2004 and data centers in 2010.
From 2005 to 2023 here are the additional exemptions added:
Meals at senior centers
Intrastate transit of persons services by a government, charitable, or nonprofit organization
Gratuities
Food for domestic home consumption
Equipment used to construct a new coal gasification facility
Data center equipment
Lottery tickets and equipment
Sales price of motor vehicle if purchased by nonresident and removed from state within 30 days
Lodging services by county fair board during a county fair.
For the last year it is estimated the state and local share of the exemptions came in around $2.8 Billion in tax forgone for that one year.
The tax exemptions grew like topsy.
Contact Joan Barron at 307-632-2534 or jmbarron@bresnan.net
