Daniels Signs State Budget, Tax Cuts
Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels has signed two bills with major business implications into law. The first is a two-year, $28 billion budget that includes an automatic taxpayer refund if reserves hit a certain amount. The second is a two percent corporate tax cut.The governor signed 80 bills into law today, including the final pieces of his 2011 legislative agenda, which include a corporate income tax reduction, the broadening of public-private partnerships for infrastructure, legislative and congressional redistricting and the move of school board elections to the fall.
Other bills of interest signed today include: SEA 251, SEA 292, SEA 431, SEA 506, SEA 590, HEA 1129, HEA 1210, HEA 1216 and HEA 1402.
The governor also signed HEA 1001, the state budget bill, and offered this comment about the included automatic taxpayer refund:
“I’m very pleased at the enactment of the automatic taxpayer refund, though I would have preferred a simpler, cleaner version that gave any refund entirely back to taxpayers. Our administration ended the practice of skipping payments to the Teachers Retirement Fund and hope Indiana will never return to it. Assuming that’s correct, additional payments would be unnecessary and immaterial. If and when there is a refund, the legislature should examine a distribution that is per capita rather than pro rata, which would be far simpler and also more meaningful to people of modest means.”
In addition, the governor vetoed HEA 1177, Boards of Trustees for Universities. His veto message is below:
“I have chosen to veto HEA 1177, which would require that the majority of the members of the board of trustees of both Indiana University and Ball State University be residents of Indiana, and that all members of the I.U. board be citizens of the United States.
“While in practice this may always be the case, to require it by law expresses a narrow and provincial outlook inconsistent with the global role and stature we hope these schools will aspire to and attain. Also, the day may well come when these world-class institutions will want to include illustrious alumni from around the globe on their boards. The universities should not be denied such opportunities, nor future governors prohibited from making such appointments.”
Source: Office of Governor Mitch Daniels