| For Immediate Release |
| March 31, 1999 |
SAINT PAUL -- Minnesota Speaker of the House Steve Sviggum (R-Kenyon) has asked the Senate to speed up tax relief for Minnesota farm families by offering to remove the farm tax relief package from the tax rebate bill and take the issue up separately.
"We have been bogged down in conference committee for several weeks on the tax rebate issue," said Sviggum. "That has meant that instead of getting the farm tax relief into the hands of our struggling farmers, the issue has gotten caught up in the larger debate over the rebate of the state surplus.
"I don't think we can afford to delay the farm tax relief, and every day we do, we are causing more damage to an already battered farm economy in this state."
House Republicans have approved over $70 million in farm tax relief, while the Senate DFLers have proposed around $40 million and Governor Jesse Ventura's budget calls for $10 million in relief.
"I think the agricultural community will find the relief packages put forth by both the DFL and the governor to be wholly inadequate and not sufficient responses to the current farm crisis," said Sviggum. "While we realize the state can not solve what is primarily a federal issue, we believe the $70 million in property tax relief is an effort to ease the problems and hopefully help some farm families survive. Helping farmers struggling with very low commodity prices by assistance in paying the first half of property taxes on May 15 is what the House Republican legislation aims to do."
The key to providing some relief for farmers, according to Sviggum, is the timing. "The amount of the relief isn't going to matter if the Senate keeps tying it up in conference committee and blocking the distribution of the relief payments to farmers," he said. "The House Republicans would have liked the payments to go out weeks ago, and now we're rushing up against the crush of spring planting and the first half of property tax payments that are just over a month away."
If the Senate were to act on the House offer immediately, it is expected that the State Department of Revenue could actually get the property tax relief checks to farmers in time for their first-half property tax payment on May 15.