If you remember nothing else about Senate File 295 know this: It’s the biggest tax cut in Iowa history. One after another, that’s the point Gov. Terry Branstad and other speakers drove home Wednesday at a bill-signing ceremony for the wide-ranging bill that provides tax relief to all classes of Iowa property — agricultural, residential, [...]

DES MOINES – Gov. Terry Branstad has chosen a Hiawatha business as the backdrop next week when he signs the largest tax cut in Iowa history into law. Branstad announced Wednesday that he will sign Senate File 295 at 1 p.m. at Hawkeye Ready-Mix, Inc. in Hiawatha next Wednesday, June 12. The historic, wide-ranging bill [...]

DES MOINES – The split-control Legislature and Gov. Terry Branstad reached accord Thursday on a wide-ranging tax relief package that will benefit all property classes, return a share of the state surplus to income taxpayers and provide a break to low-income working families. Negotiators forged a hybrid compromise of the competing approaches favored by Gov. [...]

Details of a property tax agreement are sketchy, despite claims by parties privy to the discussion that it’s nearly a done deal. According to various reports, the property tax plan, which may be as large as $400 million, if approved by the split-control Legislature, will provide tax relief to commercial property owners and offer some [...]

DES MOINES — Roving bands of lawmakers occasionally meeting to discuss unresolved priority issues were the few public vestiges of progress being made Thursday as the split-control Legislature pushed toward adjourning the 2013 session – possibly by next week. Top legislators assured reporters that key players on the big four issues – property tax relief, [...]

By Dave Parsons —-   Is the proposed Johnson County Justice Center a monument to excess or exactly what we need? Let’s start with what we can all agree on. One-third of the project cost is for a new jail. The current jail is double-bunked with 92 beds and does not meet state minimum standards. [...]

On the 109th day of a scheduled 110-day legislative session, Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal said lawmakers will “stay until the job gets done.” Although he couldn’t explain his optimism, House Speaker Kraig Paulsen, R-Hiawatha, said that could be next week. “People are talking about their differences and that’s what the end of session is [...]

Sales and use tax breaks cost Iowa nearly $3.9 billion in 2010, up 62 percent from 2005, according to estimates included in a new report from the Iowa Department of Revenue. The department studied the fiscal impact to Iowa’s coffers of 133 sales and use tax exemptions and 63 property tax exemptions and credits on [...]