[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 17940-17941]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        SALES TAX DEDUCTIBILITY

  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I rise to talk about a matter of simple 
tax fairness for the citizens of my State.
  South Dakota, like several other States, has no State income tax. Our 
State relies on sales tax to pay for

[[Page 17941]]

schools, police departments, and other critical needs.
  While people in other States can deduct their State income taxes from 
their Federal taxes, people in States without income taxes do not get a 
corresponding deduction for the State sales tax that they pay. Those 
people are losing out on a deduction they deserve.
  I strongly support fixing this unfairness, and last year I and a 
number of my colleagues introduced a bill to do that. I also agree with 
the bipartisan group of my colleagues--including Senators Frist, 
Hutchison, Cantwell, Murray, and Enzi--who point out that we can fix 
this problem now in the FSC/ETI bill. The sales tax fix will be part of 
that conference.
  We in the Senate have appointed conferees and are ready to roll up 
our sleeves and get to work on the conference. However, the House has 
yet to appoint conferees so our work can begin.
  I do not understand what the House is waiting for because this is 
important legislation, and I urge them to act quickly so that we can 
address both the broader bill and the State sales tax issue very soon.

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